[Oberlist] PL* Jazz behind the Iron Curtain

[oberlist mailing list]

-- 
Moldova Young Artists Association "Oberliht"
http://www.oberliht.org.md
.   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .
http://idash.org/mailman/listinfo/oberlist
portal informational pentru arta si cultura din Moldova
information gateway for arts and culture from Moldova


---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Jazz behind the Iron Curtain
From:    "Zugravu Gh." <zugravu_gheorghe la list.ru>
Date:    Wed, February 20, 2008 23:07
To:      "oberlist mailing list" <ober la emdash.org>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Conference: Jazz behind the Iron Curtain
German Historical Institute Warsaw, Poland
26 - 28 September 2008

DEADLINE: 1 April 2008
Please send your information and suggestions to
Dr. Rudiger Ritter at RRitter la gmx.de

Conference Aims

The music of freedom, democracy and modernity as
well as a symbol of the American way of life ­
these are the central elements of a myth that has
surrounded jazz since its inception, and which
became influential particularly in the state
socialist societies of East-Central Europe after
1945. Scene insiders accord jazz an important
role in resisting the state socialist order. We
need to differentiate here: Forms of targeted
political resistance are scarcely to be found in
East-Central European jazz. Even at first glance,
however, such “apolitical“ phenomena as the
simple joy of playing and improvisation or the
existence of a jazz scene that was difficult for
the regime to control necessarily made this music
and its environment a political factor of the
first rank, which was also shaped by the
connection of jazz to its country of origin. The
transfer of U.S. American cultural forms helped
to bolster oppositional circles intellectually,
which in turn was exploited by U.S. American
propaganda officers who made jazz a political weapon in the Cold War.

The conference is directed at historians,
scholars in the field of cultural studies,
sociologists and musicologists who are working on
jazz and related music and its social impact in
the state socialist societies of Eastern Europe
after the Second World War. The aim is to
describe the efficacy paradigms of jazz in state socialism.

The conference is being organised by a research
project on “Jazz in the Eastern Bloc” based at
the Institute for Eastern European Studies of the
Free University of Berlin and funded by the
Volkswagen Foundation. The project is under the
direction of Prof. Gertrud Pickhan (Project
coordinator: Dr. Rudiger Ritter). It is intended
to inspire more intensive research on the
functioning of state socialist societies from a
viewpoint that scholars have largely neglected up
until now. The immediate aim is thus to take
stock of current work on the societal function of
jazz as a point of departure for further
research. A selection of the contributions will be published.

Possible topics (by no means exhaustive):
The jazz scene in individual countries
(especially Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, the
GDR, the USSR, the Baltic countries, other eastern bloc states)
Jazz as a means of propaganda and counter-propaganda
Jazz and film
Jazz and the media (radio, TV, photography)
Jews and jazz
Biographical studies of individual jazz musicians
Jazz festivals and jazz organisations (e. g. Jazz
Jamboree, Jazz Section in the CSSR)
Musicians’ travels from West to East and
vice-versa (Dave Brubeck, Louis Armstrong)
Development of “national styles“ in jazz?
Jazz as a vehicle for “Americanisation”
Jazz and youth culture
Jazz and other musical genres: rock, pop, chanson and modern classical music

We encourage suggestions for papers on jazz in an
individual country as well as on comparative work
about one or more countries of the former
“eastern bloc”; relevant “East-West” comparisons
are also welcome. We are also interested in
contributions that discuss methodological issues
from both social scientific and musicological
perspectives. The conference language will be English.

Please email your suggestions (approx. one page)
and a brief CV as Word documents by 1 April 2008
to Dr. Rudiger Ritter at RRitter la gmx.de. We will
inform you of our selections by 1 May 2008.

We plan to publish selected papers in a conference volume.

Rudiger Ritter
Garystr. 55, 14195 Berlin
030 838 54536
RRitter la gmx.de

Internetauftritt des Projekts
http://www.oei.fu-berlin.de/projekte/jazz/index.html