Call for Abstracts

Special Issue on "Popular Music in the Post-Soviet Space: Trends, Movements, and Social Contexts"

Guest-Editors: Yngvar Steinholt, Tromsø University
David-Emil Wickström, University of Copenhagen
Mark Yoffe, George Washington University

Fifteen years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, popular music is thriving in the former Soviet territories and covers a broad variety of genres. Among these are rock bands formed in the Soviet era, surviving legends of Soviet pop, and younger bands and performers of the 1990s and 2000s. Local and foreign musics blend as new impulses arrive from without and arise from within the region. Thanks to the most recent wave of Russian emigrants, these popular musics have also spread to various localities around the world, as exemplified by the phenomenon of "Russendisko" in Berlin or the Russkii Rok-Klub v Amerike (Russian Rock Club of America).

This special edition of Popular Music and Society aims to present research on contemporary popular music (broadly defined) in the former Soviet republics and their diasporas. A central issue will be how the musical landscape has changed since the collapse of the Soviet Union: What present trends can be observed? How has the Soviet context influenced the popular music of today? How is music performed and consumed? How has the interrelationship between cultural industry and performers developed? How are nationalist sensibilities affecting popular music and vice versa? What are the future potentials and orientations of popular music in and around this vast region?

Contributions are welcomed from researchers in all disciplines involved in the study of popular music in the post-Soviet space: popular music studies, ethnomusicology, Russian studies, literature studies, culture studies, sociology, history, linguistics, folklore, journalism.

Deadline for abstracts (maximum 600 words): 1. September 2007

Submission instructions: Submit abstract by e-mail to Yngvar Steinholt:

Tentative schedule:

• September 2007: deadline for abstracts
• September 2008: deadline for articles (must be in MLA format)
• Spring 2009: special issue published