Word and Music Studies: Fifth International Conference
August 17-20, 2005
University of California at Santa Barbara
Call for Papers
The International Association for Word and Music Studies (WMA) takes pleasure in announcing its Fifth International Conference to be held at the University of California at Santa Barbara from August 17 to 20, 2005. Previous conferences have been held biennially in Graz, Ann Arbor, Sydney, and Berlin, with conference proceedings published in the association's book series, Word and Music Studies (WMS). Proceedings from the most recent conference in Berlin are due early in 2005.
Scholars active in all areas of Word and Music Studies are invited to participate in the Santa Barbara conference, which, like its predecessors, will be devoted to two themes, the second of which is a regular feature.
The primary theme is Word/Music Adaptation. Participants are invited to understand the term in its broadest sense, including the many processes by which one work frames itself as a version of another: an extended paraphrase, re-enactment, parallel, recounting, transposition, condensation, expansion, travesty, metacommentary, and so on ad infinitum. The works discussed should involve both words and music. The adaptation process may occur between works in two different media or, in cases of multiple transpositions, along a series, e. g., Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire, Elia Kazan's film, and André Previn's opera. Papers may explore these relationships, theorize about them, or question them; the key categories of work' and original' or source', together with the associated concepts of fidelity and adequacy, are available both to be utilized and to be questioned.
The second theme, Surveying the Field, involves papers airing general theoretical and methodological questions intrinsic to the established scholarly field of Word and Music Studies. Overviews of recent developments and new directions are welcome. Papers in this area should not address specialized topics.
Papers accepted on the basis of submitted abstracts should be 30 minutes long. In addition, the conference will sponsor a Forum consisting of shorter (15-minute) papers. The Forum is designed especially for younger scholars wishing to present their work in the field of Word and Music Studies.
Members of the Programme Committee are Walter Bernhart (University of Graz, Austria), Lawrence Kramer (Fordham University, New York, NY, USA) and Werner Wolf (University of Graz, Austria).
Abstracts of conference papers, not exceeding 300 words, should be submitted via e-mail to Walter Bernhart, walter.bernhart@uni-graz.at, by 1 December, 2004.
The local organizers in Santa Barbara are Professor Eric Prieto of the Department of French and Italian and Professor Simon Williams of the Department of Dramatic Art, both at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Santa Barbara is an attractive resort city about one hundred miles northwest of Los Angeles, situated on a narrow coastal plane between the Santa Ynez mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Few cities in the world can rival Santa Barbara's scenery and its mild climate. UCSB was recently cited by Newsweek as being one of the 25 hottest' colleges in the US, an evaluation based in part on the great beauty of the campus, situated ten miles west of the city and surrounded on three sides by the Pacific Ocean.
Events planned for the conference include an opening reception, a concert and, on the final day, a tour of the vineyards in the Santa Ynez valley, which has recently become one of the prime winegrowing areas in the country. There will be a party on the closing evening and throughout the conference several opportunities to sample Santa Barbara's fine restaurants. Rooms have been reserved at the Best Western South Coast Inn, a comfortable motel-style establishment about three miles from the campus, next door to the Calle Real Shopping Center. Rates have not yet been fixed but they will be specially discounted for the conference, probably in the vicinity of $125.00 to $140.00 per night.
There will be no lack of operatic activity in the western US next summer. Visitors may wish to travel to the Santa Fe Festival either before or after the conference; next year's repertoire includes Turandot, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Lucio Silla, Peter Grimes, and Golijov's Ainadamar (Fountain of Tears). The opera seasons in both San Francisco and Los Angeles will be opening in early September and the Seattle Opera will be giving three cycles of its celebrated naturalistic Ring cycle during August. Concert goers may wish to visit the recently opened Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Los Angeles is also a surprisingly vital theatre city, with a year-round season.
More detailed information on these various venues will be available on request. Please contact sjwill@dramadance.ucsb.edu.