The ICTM Study Group Mediterranean Music Studies is pleased to announce its 14th Symposium 

Music, Bridges, Passages: Towards a Mediterranean Paradigm?

The symposium will be hosted by Institut d’Ethnologie Méditerranéenne Européenne et Comparative (IDEMEC, CNRS/Aix-Marseille Université) and Musée des Civilisations de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée (MUCEM) and will be held at MucemLab Fort St. Jean, the Research Department of the Museum, Marseille, June 26-30, 2023. 

Recent editions of our Symposium have questioned the impact of circulations in the Mediterranean, both musical and of musicians, as well as the thorny questions of legitimacy, power, authenticity, and the traditionality of music, at both local and transnational levels. For this 14th edition of the Symposium we invite colleagues to reflect on the bridges and passages — material, technological, digital, cultural, historic, aesthetic, and symbolic — embodied in musical productions, bringing them together and transforming them. We invite participants to reflect on notions of otherness and sameness and how these are manifested through music and sound in Mediterranean contexts. What senses of otherness or of unchanging sonic selfhood do these bridges and musical passages promote in the cultural foci that have come to be associated with the Mediterranean basin and its multiple diasporas? 

We will examine the bridges and passages within and between both public and private, touristic and local, sacred and secular, urban and rural, and between collective and individual spaces; between state and private institutions, politics and business, as well as, in the geographic sense, between aerial, terrestrial and aquatic spaces, throughout the Mediterranean region. What can ethnomusicology tell us about alterity and similitude in the Mediterranean through its simultaneous states of stasis and connection? 

Symbolically, the concept of bridge both connects and separates: by definition it implies two distinct entities, one on either side. It has both temporal and spatial associations, as well as social, cultural, anatomical, and indeed, spiritual ones. It carries the idea of borders, crossings, and in-betweenness: a state of transience, of being neither here nor there, whether in time or place. A bridge implies travel, movement, although it is itself static. The movement could be unidirectional or bidirectional, depending on circumstances. The notion of bridge may also be seen as problematic, as in the ‘bridging’ as opposed to the ‘embracing’, ‘engaging’ or ‘melding’ of cultures. Does the Mediterranean space then serve as a sort of sonic buffer, or as a conduit?

Submissions and presentations should be in English or French. Please submit abstracts in English or French to: ictm.marseille.2023@gmail.com

Deadline submission for all individual papers and organized (i.e., fully formed) panels is December 18, 2022. Notifications of acceptance will be circulated by mid-January, 2023.

Program Committee:

Séverine Gabry-Thienpont (co-chair), CNRS/Aix-Marseille Université

Olivier Tourny (co-chair), CNRS/Aix-Marseille Université 

Panagiota Anagnostou, École Française d’Athènes

Sergio Bonanzinga, University of Palerme

Ruth Davis, University of Cambridge

Vanessa Paloma Elbaz, University of Cambridge

Susana Moreno, Université of Valladolid Local

Arrangements Committee:

Contact Person: Matteo Cialone (Idemec), ictm.marseille.2023@gmail.com 

Olivier Tourny (Idemec, olivier.tourny@cnrs.fr)

Carole Le Cloierec (Idemec)

Marion Dumoulin (Idemec) MucemLaB.

PARTICIPANTS SHOULD BE AWARE THAT THEY ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR COVERING THE COSTS OF THEIR TRAVEL AND ACCOMMODATION. WE ARE WORKING WITH OUR HOSTS IN MARSEILLE TO ENSURE THE BEST CONDITIONS FOR YOUR STAY.

 Deadline submission for all individual papers and organized (i.e., fully formed) panels is extended to

 January 8, 2023

Notifications of acceptance will be circulated by mid-January, 2023