Appel à contributions de la revue InMedia. The French Journal of Media Studies pour son numéro spécial Rock Music, Belonging and Citizenship in the English-Speaking World (1950s-2020s).
« In the first chapter of the Resistance through Rituals volume (1975), Stuart Hall, Tony Jefferson, John Clarke and Brian Roberts essentially approach rock music and its associated “subcultures” in neo-Marxist terms as a mode of cultural resistance of the working class against capitalist hegemony. They view the various rock “subcultures” of their time–the Teddy Boys, the Mods, the Rastas–as vanguards of a renewed class consciousness, heralding emerging forms of political mobilisation that could ultimately pave the way to revolution. While this perspective was of course proved wrong, and in fact was heavily criticized from the start, including by members of Hall et als.’s own Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies group (CCCS), it has remained influential, if only because it construed the academic study of rock music through a socio-political lens, attributing as it did a central place to the question of belonging and citizenship in XXth century liberal democracies.
Subsequent approaches were often elaborated more or less directly in opposition to the CCCS’s approach while engaging directly with this question. This is for example the case of post-modern approaches to popular music, which highlight individualism in musical tastes and choices and refutes the idea of fixed modes of identification in particular in terms of social class. Other markers of collective belonging, such as race, ethnicity, locality and place, globalization and transnationalism also emerged as major themes in the study of rock music. Reconstructed understandings of collective identification in popular culture include the notion of “neo-tribes” (Maffesoli, 1996). In a different perspective, the notion of “scene” has become central in conceptualizing the diversity of populations revolving around locally defined sites of musical production and consumption (live concert industry professionals, record labels, musicians, audiences) (Straw, 2022 ; Guibert and Bellavance, 2013). Likewise, scholars have debated the mixed, fragmented, recomposed nature of rock music in the context of the international circulation of musical tastes and cross-influences in the transatlantic world (Poirrier et Le Texier, 2021). Even the question of social class has garnered renewed attention (Garbaye and Guibert, 2024). Mark Fischer’s ruminations on the instant nostalgia inherent to much of 1980s British pop music, expressing a longing for utopian futures that might have come to be had Thatcherism and “globalization” not occurred (see Ambrose, 2018), provide powerful insights into the politics of rock music […]
This call for paper for a special issue of the InMedia journal calls for article proposals on the theme of rock music, belonging and citizenship in the English-speaking world, both in a historical perspective, starting from the 1950s, and in a contemporary one. The following themes are of particular interest, but the editors will also happily consider other themes or perspectives:
-Rock music, collective identification and citizenship in terms of social class;
-Rock music and collective identification and citizenship in terms of gender;
-Rock music and collective identification and citizenship in terms of race or ethnicity -Rock music and collective identification and citizenship in terms of age;
-Rock music, identity and citizenship in liberal democracies;
-Rock music and neoliberalism;
-Rock music and illiberal politics;
-Belonging and citizenship in rock music in relation to globalization;
-Belonging in various rock communities: identity and citizenship in neighboring genres (punk, metal) and sub-genres of rock music
-Rock concerts and physicality: individual and collective bodies. »
Date limite de soumission : 1 avril 2025.
Pour plus de détails : cliquez ici.
