Resonance and Remembrance: An Interdisciplinary Bell Studies Symposium
Call for Papers and Works
Proposal deadline: January 15, 2017
Date: Friday, March 31 - Sunday, April 2, 2017
URL: https://gobluebells.wordpress.com/2016/09/21/cfp-resonance-remembrance/
Location: University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Keynote speaker: Steven Feld (Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Music Emeritus at the University of New Mexico), featuring Rahim AlHaj (oud)

Tower bells such as the carillon are hidden in plain sight: the instruments and their players cannot be viewed on performance stages, yet they provide soundscapes and focal points for thousands of cities and towns worldwide. The School of Music, Theatre & Dance at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor will host the campanology symposium Resonance and Remembrance as part of the U-M Bicentennial. We invite proposals from any discipline concerning bells and bell-ringing practices of all periods and cultures, as well as proposals for the presentation of creative campanological works. Scholarship and artistic practice will be put in dialogue on combined panels and performances.

We encourage proposals from fields ranging from musicology and sound studies to art history, anthropology, urban studies, architecture, the history of the senses, science and technology studies, new media, Dutch studies, legal studies, media arts, creative writing, performance studies, and more, as well as from artists working in any medium.

Presentations in diverse formats are encouraged, including papers, poster sessions, workshops, roundtable discussions, lecture-recitals, and themed panel sessions. U-M has two carillons available for performances. Several papers will be selected for revision and publication in the inaugural issue of the peer-reviewed Journal of Campanology.

Possible paper topics include but are not limited to:
How do bells regulate the progression of institutional and social time? How have they shaped their cities over time?
How have developers of sound synthesis and digital fabrication technologies approached the creation of bell sounds?
How do bell towers serve as both reified symbols of institutional power and longevity as well as instruments of resistance and transformation?
How can artistic and technological interventions enable open-ended audience interaction with the carillon, formerly an instrument for the disciplining of everyday life?

Email proposals to michigancarillons@gmail.com. See website for submission guidelines.