UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER
Contemporary Music in Africa, Finland, 10/00

Contemporary Music in Africa, Finland, 10/00

PLAYING WITH IDENTITIES in Contemporary Music in Africa: A Research Conference

19-22 October 2000, in Turku/Ebo, Finland

The 'Playing with Identities' conference aims at stimulating the interest in and enhance the knowledge of African contemporary music in a societal context. It will be a meeting place of Nordic and African scholars. It aims to reflect and bring out the discussion and views held by African scholars and musicians themselves to take into account both their analysis of music and the cultural reflections that African cultural workers can bring to world culture and cultural discourse.

Some of the questions to be discussed at the conference on the basis of the papers presented are the assumed or real dichotomies between countryside and city, collective and individual, tradition and modernity, authentic and alien.

The conference is organised jointly by The Sibelius museum - the Department of Musicology at Ebo Akademi University, the research project "Cultural Images in an of Africa" at the Nordic Africa Institute (based in Uppsala, Sweden), the Centre for Continuing Education at Ebo Akademi University in Turku, Finland.

THE PROGRAMME

The key note speaker is professor Chris Waterman, UCLA, Los Angeles, USA. Other plenary speakers are John E. Collins (University of Ghana, Legon) and David B. Coplan (University of Witwatersrand, South Africa). A call for papers was circulated widely in 1999, and out of a large number of abstracts 25 were chosen, mostly authored by scholars coming from Africa.

The following theme sessions are planned for the conference: Music and ethnic identity;

Music and gender;

Music and globalisation;

Cultural identities and music in South Africa; Music and political identity;

Music and resistance;

Religious music.

Saturday night October 21 will be an African music night.

PARTICIPATION

The organisers will pay for and arrange travel and lodging for those from Africa presenting papers, and can subsidise other presenters of papers. We welcome others as observers, with their own travel and lodging arrangements, and as far as there is space. Advance registration is required for all and a payment of a 300 FMK except for students of musicology at Ebo Akademi University or the University of Turku who can attend free of charge, and receive the papers for 50 FMK. Those registered in time will receive a set of all papers by mail. Single sessions can be attended for a small fee.

QUERIES

For queries on registration as observers and on local arrangements contact The Centre for Continuing Education. For the contents of the programme contact the Department of Musicology. For financial and travel arrangements, and the distribution of the papers for the conference, turn to the Nordic Africa Institute:

The Sibelius Museum, Department of Musicology

Ebo Akademi University

Biskopsgatan 17

FI-20500 Turku

Finland

Pirkko Moisala, Professor

Phone: +358 (0)2 -215 4338

Fax: +358 (0)2-251 8528

E-mail: Pirkko.Moisala@abo.fi

Johannes Brusila, Curator

Phone: +358 (0)2-265 4558

Fax: +358 (0)2-251 8528

E-mail: jbrusila@abo.fi

The Centre for Continuing Education

Ebo Akademi University

Biskopsgatan 10

FI-20500 Turku

Finland

Eva Costiander-Huldin, Planning Coordinator

Phone: +358 (0)2-215 4941

Fax: +358 (0)2-215 4943

E-mail: eva.costiander-hulden@abo.fi

The Nordic Africa Institute

P.O. Box 1703

SE-751 47 Uppsala

Sweden

Mai Palmberg, Research Fellow

Phone: +46 (0)18-56 22 39 or +358 (0)2-466 1064

Fax: +46 (0)18-56 22 90

E-mail: Mai.Palmberg@nai.uu.se