The School of Music at the University College Dublin is now accepting calls for papers for a forthcoming conference “Music, Marxism and the Frankfurt School.” You have until December 31st, 2013 to submit. The conference will be held July 2-4, 2014.

The international conference “Music, Marxism, and the Frankfurt School” will give sustained attention to the rich and fascinating interaction between music and the socio-cultural and aesthetic theory of Marxist writers in the Austro-German sphere, including members of the Frankfurt School. With its focus firmly fixed on music as the object of reflection and contemplation, the conference seeks to investigate how these thinkers conceived of and responded to music. It aims to probe the manner in which these thinkers illuminated the philosophical, political, and metaphysical aspects of musical material. Moving out concentrically from this central point, the conference will explore the influence these writers exerted on composers and musicians of their own time and of subsequent generations. It will also examine the influence of Marxist criticism and the Frankfurt School on musical discourse since the mid-twentieth century. In so doing, it aims to trace the intellectual debt many of these writers owe to the German intellectual tradition from Kant to their own time.

I wonder how many papers will follow Adorno’s tradition of complaining about jazz music.

Find out more about the conference and submission guidelines here here.

Want to let us know about any upcoming calls for papers? Email [email protected].