Call for Proposals
International Symposium, 17-19 October 2019

Folk Music Research, Folkloristics, and Anthropology of Music in Europe:
Pathways in the Intellectual History of Ethnomusicology

University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna Department of Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology
In cooperation with Mozarteum University Salzburg Department of Musicology

Keynote speaker: Owe Ronström
Uppsala University, Campus Gotland

Introduction
Folk music, folklore, and the anthropology of music are discursive fields, deeply rooted in
European thought from the Enlightenment period onwards. Up to the first decades of the 20th
centuries leading intellectuals of their countries—polymaths, philosophers, historians, writers,
philologists, composers, musicologists—devoted themselves to, and were inspired by, continuous
observations of the expressive practices of what once was called the common people or the Volk.
Their intellectual involvement with traditional music engendered powerful theories, and research
methods that could later be applied to the study not only of rural or illiterate communities but to a
broad field of social settings.
Due to language barriers as well as to wide-spread stereotypes of folk music and folklore
discourses as genuinely and predominantly ideological, romanticist and nationalist agendas, the
early intellectual history of folk music research, comparative musicology and ethnomusicology
raises many unanswered questions. This concerns intellectuals’ interest in European folk music as
well as in non-European music.
The symposium aims to trace the history of theory and method in the fields outlined above before
it became an international paradigm under the label ethnomusicology. While the time-frame is
limited to the mid-20th century a critical evaluation of our intellectual history in the context of
contemporary discourses i Universität Mozarteum Salzburgs welcome.
Scholars from different disciplines are invited to discuss the following topics:
1. The history of ideas and the study of traditional expressive cultures
The first topic is devoted to the biographical and intellectual background of early folk music
researchers and music anthropologists. It should be discussed how their interest in traditional
expressive cultures was motivated and how it was interlinked both with their individual scholarly
and/or artistic activities and with their social and intellectual environment.

1. The history of ideas and the study of traditional expressive cultures
The first topic is devoted to the biographical and intellectual background of early folk music
researchers and music anthropologists. It should be discussed how their interest in traditional
expressive cultures was motivated and how it was interlinked both with their individual scholarly
and/or artistic activities and with their social and intellectual environment.

2. Research motivations, theories and methods from a comparative perspective
Motivations for folk music research and its theoretical premises and methods developed in
different countries in different ways. The topic encourages the highlighting of anthropological
research concepts that are not often discussed in English-speaking ethnomusicology,
ethnochoreology and folkloristics, and their relationship to international discourses.

3. Scholarship and non-academic discourses: alliances and conflicts
Collecting, documenting and, representing folk music and dance is not exclusively an academic
matter. Since the early 19th century up to the present amateur activities in this field have been
inspired by artistic/aesthetic concerns but also motivated by ideological claims (nationalist, social
romanticist, and others). The topics invite us to discuss to what extent scholarly research
cooperated with broader social discourses and activities and when it came into conflict with these
agendas, be it in the context of social movements or the dominant ideologies of nation states.

Form of proposal:
Abstracts (250-300 words, MS Word format) should be submitted to Ulrich Morgenstern:
morgenstern@mdw.ac.at. Please indicate the topic of your proposal. The abstracts will be
reviewed anonymously.

Form of presentation:
20 minutes for presentation + 10 minutes for questions and discussion
Important dates:
Abstract submission deadline: 31 March 2019
Notification of acceptance (with or without revision) or non-acceptance: 15 May 2019
Revized abstract submission deadline: 24 May 2019
Notification of final acceptance or non-acceptance of revized abstracts: 31 May 2019

Program Committee:
Jana Ambrózová
Ulrich Morgenstern (Co-Chair)
Thomas Nußbaumer (Co-Chair)
Colin Quigley
Speranța Rădulescu