Log In
Sign Up
The North American British Music Studies Association (NABMSA) is proud to announce the Call for Papers for our 2027 Online Symposium (June 24-25, 2027 via Zoom). This year’s symposium explores British attitudes towards music, technology, and science, including but not limited to topics such as:
- Music within the quadrivium and natural philosophy
- Music as a form of knowledge-building
- Music and scientific institutions
- Scientific discourse and musical practice, education, and artistic production
- Technologies of dissemination and creation: printing press, recording, broadcasting, digital media, AI
- Instruments and technologies of sound production, acoustics
- Music, medical science, and the body
- Music, the natural world, and the environment
- Music, science, and empire
- Music and the digital humanities
The keynote address will be given by Prof. Linda Phyllis Austern (Northwestern University) who has written extensively about music, science, and knowledge in Britain, including in her recent book, Both from the Ears and Mind: Thinking About Music in Early Modern England (University of Chicago Press, 2020).
We invite contributions that investigate the symposium topic in a variety of biographical, theoretical, cultural, and artistic contexts, as well as any other concept related to the understanding of music and scientific knowledge in Britain.
Please submit an abstract (250‒300 words) and a brief biography (100‒150 words) for a paper presentation of 20 minutes’ duration by November 30, 2026 to nabmsa2027@gmail.com.
We also encourage the submission of roundtable or panel proposals for 90-minute sessions on any of the themes. For panels, please submit 250-300-word abstracts for each paper plus a brief overview of the panel (c.150-200 words). For roundtables please submit a 250-300-word abstract for the sessions a whole, plus 150-200 words describing each participant’s contribution to the topic. There is no registration fee associated with the conference, though all presenters will need to join NABMSA in order to present. For questions, email nabmsa2027@gmail.com
