There is still much to explore within the realm of popular music culture, making it an area ripe for in-depth inter- and transdisciplinary research. The upcoming issue of Przegląd Kulturoznawczy (Arts & Cultural Studies Review) will focus on the possibilities of crossing boundaries, examining the creative strategies of specific artists, sounds, and materialities of musical media. Drawing from the theoretical and methodological findings of cultural studies, especially popular music studies, we invite submissions that explore bricolage in music culture, transgression, extreme music, and inversion (reversal of established orders and paradigms within the realm of popular music culture) as starting points for research. We see the concept of transgression as particularly helpful in interpreting the materialities, forms, idioms, styles, and genres of popular music. Cultural studies of popular music often navigate the multi- and transgenre aspects of the field, which involves dynamic interplay between styles, aesthetics, and conventions. The borrowing, remixing, and transtextual games that occur within this space are also intriguing phenomena that deserve academic reflection.

We welcome research papers from a variety of fields, including cultural studies, media studies, anthropology, musicology, and literary studies, representing diachronic, synchronic, and comparative perspectives. We encourage papers that explore the correlations of popular music with literature and other media and those that take a performance (N. Cook), music technology (B. Hogg), sociology of everyday life (S. Frith), or multimodality of musical discourses (D. Machin, S. McKerrell, L. Way) perspective. We also invite papers that reflect on popular music reception practices and changes in the music industry, including those contextualized within the transformation of the technological landscape and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Possible paper topics include but are not limited to:

• Various dimensions of transgression in popular music culture
• Strategies for transgressing the materialities of music media
• Transgressive and subversive artistic games
• Influences, borrowings, and remixes in music culture
• Verbal and musical manifestos; intervention narratives; protest songs
• Hybrid transgressive genres in popular music
• Musical-textual artistic inversions
• Methodological innovations in (transnational) popular music studies
• Changes in the phonographic market from diachronic, synchronic, and comparative perspectives
• Contemporary reception practices
• Conditions of production and distribution of popular music
• Concepts of popular music in different geocultural settings
• Taboo in popular music narratives
• Artistic bricolage in music culture
• Inter- and transmedia projects in popular music
• Absent voices in popular music media discourses
• The impact of pandemics and pandemic restrictions on the music industry
• The impact of the technological landscape on the transformation of music culture

Editors of the issue:

Paweł Tański (Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland)

Jakub Kosek (Pedagogical University of Krakow, Poland)

To submit a paper, please send it to przeglad.kulturoznawczy[at]uj.edu.pl by April 30, 2023. 

More information about the editorial requirements can be found on our website in "For Authors" tab.

Bibliography (selection):

Empirical Musicology. Aims, Methods, Prospects, red. E. Clarke, N. Cook, Oxford, New York 2004.

Frith S., Performing Rites: Evaluating Popular Music, Oxford 1998.

Holt F., Genre in Popular Music, Chicago 2007.

Jenks Ch., Transgression, London, New York 2003.

Kahn-Harris K., Extreme Metal. Music and Culture on the Edge, Oxford 2007.

Kozielecki J., Transgresja i kultura, Warszawa 1997.

Machin D., Analysing Popular Music: Image, Sound, Text, London 2010.

Moore A.F., Song Means: Analysing and Interpreting Recorded Popular Song, Burlington 2012.