CFP: Study Day “Technology and Agency in Global Music History”, Online, January 21, 2027 Call for Papers Meetings & Events NEW

The IMS Study Group “Global History of Music” invites proposals for the online Study Day “Technology and Agency in Global Music History”, January 21, 2027. This event considers musical and sonic technologies in their broadest sense, asking what role they have played in global histories of music and sound, how they shape methodological and theoretical approaches to the field, and what their implications are for understandings of human and nonhuman agency.

Key questions include:
–       What forms of agency are involved in the development, circulation, and application of musical and sonic technologies across global historical spaces?
–       How are musical and sonic technologies connected to the expansion of and resistance to colonialist, capitalist, socialist, or other global networks?
–       What role have musical instruments and related technologies played in global encounters and entanglements, and how has agency been (re)configured in these processes?
–       What are the methodological and epistemological implications of considering the global history of musical and sonic technologies from material and environmental perspectives?
–       How might theoretical understandings of technology and nonhuman agency be enriched by the study of global music histories, and vice versa?
–       How have digital technologies shaped the practice and conceptualization of global music history, and what consequences might new developments in AI have for the field?
–       To what extent have technologies facilitated extractivist practices in global music history, and how might they serve the goals of open digital access, collaboration, or reparative research?

Proposals are invited for individual papers of 20 minutes, or roundtables of 90 minutes (three speakers). Abstracts of 300 words, accompanied by name(s), affiliation(s), and contact details of the author(s), should be sent to globalhistory@musicology.org by November 13, 2026.

Committee: Jacob Olley and David R. M. Irving (convenors), Jen-yen Chen, Maria Alexandra Iñigo Chua, and Miranda B. T. Sousa.