(with Philip Bohlman) Editorial: Musics, Cultures, Identities

Acta Musicologica 91, 2019, S. 1–4., 2019

Acta Musicologica, 2022

Acta Musicologica, 2018

Strong ideological positions have historically generated many of the most inuential discourses in musicology, shaping the distinctions between local, individual approaches to understanding music and the more universal, collective practices of music scholarship. The rise of modern musicology during the nineteenth century and its globalization in the twentieth and twenty-rst centuries have depended no less on the spread of grand theory than on the ability to redeploy musicological method through ideologies that served the few rather than the many. Among the ideologies that most closely accompanied musicology's expansion were those that laid the most passionate claims for ownership and the valuation of self over other: nation and race, particularly in their most extreme ideological expressions, nationalism and racism. At various historical moments, dierent attributes accrued to nation and race, often making it dicult to view the musics of national and cultural entities positively or negatively. Nation and race are not only objects of musicological thought, but to a certain extent also its product. In fascist and racist regimes, some musicologists were-and are-willing to embrace research themes consonant with the political agendas of current rulers. However, even in democratic contexts, musicology, as with scientic discourse in general, contributes to the shaping of cultural, political, and racial identities, and is therefore part of the phenomenon it seeks to describe. Histories of Western art music undertaken over the course of the twentieth century took the form of national music histories, and-more often consciously than not-contributed to the construction of their own national cultural identities. Toward the end of the twentieth century, increasing globalization and networking in every area of life led to dissolution of the tenet of national cultures as concepts of hybridity and mobility grew increasingly important for music scholarship. New research foci on cultural transfer, cultural exchanges, and tangled histories were the methodological consequence of this turn. At the same time, critical reection on the role of academic discourse in the deployment of colonial and post-colonial power changed the attitude and the methods of Western ethnomusicologists when approaching their research elds. New concepts about subjectivity and the social processes shaping subject positions opened new perspectives in musicological research on gender, ethnicity, and race. As a result, entire elds, such as subaltern and disability studies, emerged. Notwithstanding the long history of studying nation and race as contexts for musical meaning, a more dramatic ideological turn has taken place in recent years,

This compilation of articles resulting from papers given on the occasion of three different seminars in three consecutive years from 2013 to 2015 (Perspectives on an 21st Century Comparative Musicology: Ethnomusicology or Transcultural Musicology?; Living Music: Case Studies and New Research Prospects, and Musical Traditions in Archives, Patrimonies, and New Creativities) is an interesting mixture of very updated and at the same time well-grounded insights into the core problems of a discipline that starts to question itself: Ethnomusicology or transcultural musicology? It is not by accident that the title of the first conference is also the general topic of the publication, whether there are sections on local music practices, historical research activities or general anthropology. The central question seems to be the denial of purity in cultures and the consequences for anything ethnomusicology has achieved so far.

2020

The book contains a detailed introductory study by the editors and 15 chapters by distinguished scholars from 13 countries (Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Lithuania, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Georgia). This edition presents a pioneering endeavour in global scholarly frames.The main idea was to gain a nuanced scholarly insight that could encourage wider comparative musical studies on different variants of more or less similar phenomena in postsocialist countries. At the same time, diversity, as an important feature of thе volume, testifies to the very wide scope of the term “postsocialism” in music, and leads to a further critical examination of its explanatory value. A variety of local contexts goes together with a very wide range of scholarly approaches. Giving voice to native scholars has allowed to obtain “insights from within”. Thus, the publication testifies to an investment in the decolonialisation of power dictated by the dominant Anglo-American ethno/musicology that determines and controls the production of knowledge about music in global world.

Journal of the Royal Musical Association, v. 135, n. 2 (November 2010), pp. 205-243

Marija Golubović, Monika Novaković, Miloš Marinković (eds.): Shaping the Present by the Future: Ethno/musicology and Contemporaneity, 2020

Young Musicology Belgrade is the third conference in the series that began with the Young Musicology Prague conference, organized by Department of Music History, Institute of Ethnology, of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic in 2016, and followed by the Young Musicology Munich conference in autumn 2018 that was held at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. In this instalment in Belgrade, our starting point is the following question: what is the place of ethno/musicological thought in the contemporary world? The notion of contemporaneity, while constantly provoking theorization, provides us the opportunity to self-reflect and analyze our own methodologies, strategies and scientific challenges in the present moment. What is happening in ethno/musicology after modernist historicism and its postmodern critical self-examination in movements such as the New Ethno/Musicology? Are the familiar methodologies still relevant, have they improved or changed, and in what ways? How can we establish fruitful inter/transdisciplinary collaborations between ethno/musicology and other humanities, social or natural sciences? What is the impact of technology and media in today’s musicology and ethnomusicology? These are just a few questions faced by the humanities by the contemporary world, and the aim of our conference is to draft possible answers by giving voice to the young experts in our fields. In this conference, PhD students and young scholars will reflect upon these topics, and share their methodologies, experiences and challenges in dealing with various subjects of contemporary ethno/musicology. The starting points of our conference include contemporary challenges in ethno/musicology; methodology of contemporary ethno/musicology; the future of ethno/ musicology; inter/trans-disciplinary collaborations; ethno/musicology and technology; ethno/musicology and media – important subjects which occupy the minds of our keynote speakers as well as our participants. Dr. David Beard asks the following questions: Have there been new conflicts and tensions? What does the current situation indicate about the future? With intention to answer those and associated questions in his keynote lecture Musicology, Crisis and the Contemporary, Or: Musicology’s Oedipus Complex focusing on two concepts: crisis and the contemporary. In his search for answers, he will navigate his way through the context of quality of musical education, political and ideological ramifi cations of the humanities as well as concerns and problems in society musicology is becoming aware of. What can musicology do against such concerns and in what way? Dr. Selena Rakočević will, in her keynote lecture Challenges of ethnomusicological and ethnochoreological research within the ever changing world. A view of a scholar from Serbia, provide us with the invaluable insight into the challenges she met as a scholar practicing ethnomusicological and ethnochoreological research since mid-1990s, but also those of her colleagues from Serbia and other former Yugoslav countries. Rakočević also states that it is her intention to confront all various voices which shaped her current personal view of what is being done in our ethnomusicological and ethnochoreological research, the way it is done and the reason behind doing just that in the first place. In the end, she will try to identify the importance this reason carries within itself and for whom. Our participants will encompass the wide range of topics in regards to musical performance, the relationship of ethnomusicology and contemporaneity, challenges in researching minority music, questions of musical folklorism, musicology and film studies, the status of radio art in musicology, musicology and metal music studies, post-feminism and feminism, education, developments of methodologies relevant to the research of musical borrowing, computational musicology, musicology and virtual reality, place of musicology in personal computing revolution and others. We hope this exchange of thoughts, concerns and answers to the urgent matters will prompt scholars to ask new questions and also equip them to answer the future challenges they will face.