Pre-Conference Symposium
Toward a 21st-Century Ethnomusicology
Sponsored by the Wesleyan University Music Department with support from Wesleyan’s Edward W. Snowdon Fund, the Office of Academic Affairs, the President’s Office, and the George Jackson Memorial Lecture Fund.
We are pleased to offer online video viewing of the pre-conference (select the session on the menu to the left). The videos take some time to load, so please be patient.
Friday October 24
7:00am to 9:00pm
Center for the Arts Cinema
Much has changed in the half century since the globe was terminologically divided into First, Second, and Third Worlds, reflecting economic and political inequities. Despite more recent terminology recognizing political sensitivities (“developing,” “industrializing”) and new travel and communication networks (“transnational,” “virtual,” “global”), communication with scholars living outside North America and Europe has been isolated. While many ethnomusicologists have individually worked closely with scholars in the countries of our research, there has been little broader communication working toward a more global ethnomusicology, especially the kind that both takes full advantage of the latest technology to bring disparate groups together, and that takes account of local concerns, the twin edges of the globalization sword.
In this pre-conference we look forward and attempt to map out issues for an ethnomusicology that functions on a more global scale. We intend to open up the umbrella of ethnomusicology and bring to a broader audience the concerns of both younger and more established scholars primarily working in their home countries outside North America and Europe. We do this in two ways. Firstly, we are inviting scholars from China, Indonesia, and Africa to participate in person. Secondly, via the internet we are setting up a global symposium of unprecedented scale in our field. In addition to webcasting the proceedings and enabling individual viewers to communicate with us, we are designating sites in China, Taiwan, Indonesia, and Africa where students and professionals can gather to participate and interact in real time. With Wesleyan as a hub, we plan to link groups who would not otherwise converse with each other. The pre-conference will consist of international panels discussing issues of concern from their own perspectives.
7:00am – 9:00am
China, Taiwan
9:00am – 9:30am
Break
9:30am – 11:30am
Indonesia
11:30am –1:00pm
Lunch in Beckham Hall
1:00pm – 3:00pm
Africa
3:00pm – 7:00pm
Break and Dinner
7:00pm – 9:00pm
Plenary session
Eric Charry (echarry@wesleyan.edu)
Local Arrangements Chair, SEM 2008