Song Studies Seminar Series

On the morning of 27 January 1945, the Auschwitz-Birkenau camps were liberated. Many countries all over the world have since several years designated 27 January as Holocaust Remembrance Day, to commemorate the murder of millions of European Jews between 1940 and 1945.

In honour of the Holocaust Remembrance Day on Friday 27 January 2023, the Song Studies Network is organising seminar about song and music in times of violence and war. We have invited Dr. Anna Papaeti, Dr. Elise Petit and Dr. Joseph Toltz to present their work on song and music in Nazi concentration camps and Greek military prisons during the dictatorship.

The event will take place on Friday 27 January, online, from 12:00 -13:30h (CET). Members have received a meeting link. If you are not yet a member but would like to join, please email songstudies@gmail.com.

Programme

Joseph Toltz (University of Sydney): “Yiesh (Songs of Despair): the place of lamentation in Holocaust-era songs”
Elise Petit (Université Grenoble-Alpes): "Music in Nazi camps: what objects tell us about official and clandestine activities”
Anna Papaeti (Institute of Historical Research, National Hellenic Research Foundation): "Singing and the Ethics of Witnessing: The Case of Averof Prison (1967-1971)"

Seminar 4: Song and Music in Concentration Camps and Prisons

We are excited to present the third session of our Song Studies Seminar Series:

Disaster Ballads: An International Survey

Heather Sparling (Cape Breton University), Siv Gøril Brandtzæg (Norwegian University of Science and Technology), and Lotte Jensen (Radboud University Nijmegen) discuss their respective research projects on this perennial and fascinating topic. Una McIlvenna chairs the discussion.

Friday 17 June 2022

We are proud to announce the second session of our Song Studies Seminar Series:

Popular Song versus Authoritarian Rule in the Early Modern Period

with Nicholas Hammond, Una McIlvenna, John Romey, and Renée Vulto.

14 April 2022

Based on presentations of short case studies from their research, the panel look at events in early modern France and the Netherlands, discussing how they were depicted in popular song versus official propaganda.

We are proud to announce the first session of our Song Studies Seminar Series!

On Friday 4 March, 12:00-13:00 GMT (UK time), a panel consisting of John Street, Oskar Cox Jensen, Angela McShane and Marta Michalska kicked off the series with a panel discussion about protest songs.

'What does a protest song do? Comparing approaches and perspectives'

In asking what protest songs do, the panel reports on research into the use of music and sound as political protest. Drawing on projects based in England and Poland, the four short talks explore the different ways to understand and analyse song and sound as political communication. Marta Michalska discusses her study of Warsaw and its phonosphere at the turn of the 19th/20th century. Oskar Cox Jensen, Angela McShane and John Street discuss their project, ‘Our Subversive Voice: the history and politics of the English protest song’ (https://oursubversivevoice.com/).