CFP: Hobsbawm, Newton und Jazz, Mainz, Nov 2013

Call for Papers - Conference "Hobsbawm, Newton und Jazz"
15.-16. November 2013, Mainz

Organised by the “Music and Youth Culture” research project (Department of Musicology, Johannes Gutenberg-Universitaet) and the Contemporary History study group (Department of History, Johannes Gutenberg-Universitaet)

His name is associated with brilliant concepts and lucid, clear-cut analyses: Eric J. Hobsbawm, who died in 2012 at the age of 95, was undoubtedly one of the most respected historians of the “age of extremes”, as he described the 20th century. Far less known than the output of his historiographical work is the fact that Hobsbawm dealt with jazz throughout his life. He understood jazz as an aesthetic as well as a socio-cultural, political, and historical phenomenon, most prominently in his collection of essays Uncommon People: Resistance, Rebellion, and Jazz (1998). Moreover, in 1958 Hobsbawm had published a monograph on the subject too: The Jazz Scene. Although this study still can be read as analytically and methodically striking, Hobsbawm did not publish it in his own name, but chose the allusive pseudonym Francis Newton.

At this conference, open to a variety of disciplines, Hobsbawm’s work will be considered from a multi-perspective view with The Jazz Scene being at the centre of discussion. Possible questions and topics (amongst many others) to be explored: Why did Hobsbawm engage so intensely with jazz and why did he do so at this particular time? Who is the “auteur” of The Jazz Scene­the historian or the jazz fan? To what extent can Hobsbawm’s work on jazz be connected to his historiographical work? What assumptions and ways of thinking does Hobsbawm engage in The Jazz Scene? Other possible contributions might address related topics: Does Hobsbawm understand jazz as an emancipatory or even revolutionary phenomenon, and to what extent does he follow Marxist interpretations? How does Hobsbawm relate jazz to “the other arts” (cf. chapter 9 of The Jazz Scene)? Since Hobsbawm seems to regard jazz as a subcultural phenomenon, how does he treat aspects of race, class, and gender within this conte
 xt? A
nd to what extent might the use of the term “scene” anticipate the widely discussed subcultural theories of the 1970s and ’80s?

Proposals (max. 1,500 characters, incl. spaces) for presentations of up to 30 minutes in length should be submitted by e-mail by 15 July 2013 to:

hindrich at uni-mainz.de and linsenmann at uni-mainz.de.

Conference languages are German and English.