SAM 2013 Session CFP: “Music in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World”

Call for Papers
Panel: “Music in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World”
Society for American Music 2013 Conference

Musical life in eighteenth-century America was indelibly shaped by Atlantic cultural currents. The same vessels that carried goods and people also transmitted music, and unprecedented expansion in the print sphere joined oral traditions to circulate music around the Atlantic world. Music connected nascent nations transatlantically; certain cities served as key destinations for musical migrants in the circum-Atlantic world; and individual locations became cis-Atlantic musical nodes whose local distinctiveness were tied to the broader cultural trends of the Atlantic world.

This session locates American music in the Atlantic world during the long eighteenth century. How did American musical practices change with the increasing availability of music from Europe? What music repertories traveled from the colonies to other destinations around the Atlantic Ocean? Did especially strong musical ties connect particular loci in the Atlantic world? What do transatlantic musical trends tell us about American cultural self-fashioning vis-à-vis the broader Atlantic world? We invite papers that draw on insights from the robust field of Atlantic History, and welcome topics that engage with the concepts of transatlantic, circum-Atlantic, and cis-Atlantic musical connections before the 1830s. These three concepts were first outlined by historian David Armitage in his introduction to The British Atlantic World, 1500-1800 (2002), and papers in dialogue with Armitage’s introduction are encouraged.

350-word proposals for 20-minute presentations should be sent to Glenda.Goodman@gmail.com by 14 May 2012.