Call for papers: The Ideologies of Contemporary Music in Romania

CfP Transilvania

The Ideologies of Contemporary Music in Romania

Revista Transilvania invites scholars, researchers, and practitioners to submit original papers for a special issue focusing on “The Ideologies of Contemporary Music in Romania.” This issue aims to explore the diverse ideological frameworks that shape, influence, and are reflected in the contemporary Romanian music scene. We encourage submissions that engage with interdisciplinary perspectives, including but not limited to musicology, cultural studies, political science, sociology, anthropology, and philosophy.

Context and Rationale

Romania’s contemporary music landscape is vast and multifaceted, shaped by complex intersections of local and global influences, and reflecting various socio-political transformations. In recent decades, Romanian composers, performers, and musical institutions have navigated post-communist transitions, European integration, globalization, and digitalization, all of which have contributed to evolving ideologies within the musical realm. Where other important areas of Romanian contemporary culture, such as film or literature, have received extended critical and ideological treatment in recent years, be them in terms of defining new niches of Romanian film, such as the New Romanian Cinema or the films of Radu Jude (Gorzo 2012; Gorzo & Lazăr 2023), or tracing ideological histories of post-communist Romanian literature (Iovănel 2021), contemporary Romanian music has been absent from any such culturally-oriented discussions.

This special issue seeks to critically examine how ideologies—whether political, cultural, social, or aesthetic—are articulated, negotiated, and contested through contemporary music in Romania. We are particularly interested in exploring how music interacts with national identity, heritage, and modern global trends, as well as how ideological discourses are produced or subverted through musical practices. Thus, one aim of this issue is to analyze and historicize the most relevant phenomena in contemporary Romanian music, whether as case studies focused on individual artists or as more general depictions of music genres and/or scenes. Moreover, another aim is to offer a multidisciplinary approach to the study of music consumption, by tracing how alternative discourses on music are produced and functionalized across different domains (such as literature, film, drama, social media, or politics).

Therefore, this issue welcomes contributions regarding, but not limited to, the latest transformations of urban/trap music (Mackintosh 2021), the evolution of Ro-minimal or other forms of electronic club music (State & Guțu 2019; Reynaldo 2023; Wark 2023), the emergence of alternative genres of electronic music (Monacelli 2023; Toop 2018; Tanner 2016; Novak 2013), avant-garde or academic forms of music (Anghel 2018; Ross 2007; Moore 2024), the interaction between music and gender or racial biases (Brown Jr. 2022; Rodgers 2010), and the ideological impact of popular music (Fisher 2018, 2014; Manning 2023; Reynolds 2012).

Topics of Interest

We welcome contributions that address, but are not limited to, the following topics:

Music and Nationalism: The role of music in constructing or deconstructing Romanian national identity.
Post-communist Transitions: Ideological shifts in Romanian music post-1989, including reflections on censorship, state support, and artistic freedom.
Globalization and Localism: The influence of global musical trends and how Romanian musicians maintain or reimagine local traditions within a globalized cultural context.
Cultural Policies and Music Institutions: The impact of government policies on the development of contemporary music in Romania, and the role of key musical institutions in promoting particular ideological narratives.
Gender, Race, and Class in Music: The intersection of music with issues of social inequality, including the representation of marginalized groups.
Avant-garde and Popular Music: Ideological tensions between high art and mass culture in Romania’s contemporary music scene.
Music and Technology: The influence of digital platforms, streaming services, and new media on musical production, distribution, and ideological framing.
Music and Memory: The role of music in memorializing or contesting historical events, such as the communist era or the 1989 revolution.
Diaspora and Transnationalism: The impact of the Romanian diaspora on contemporary music, and the ideological implications of cross-border musical exchanges.
Music and Activism: The role of music in political and social movements, including protest music and music as a form of resistance or advocacy.

Submission Guidelines

We invite submissions of full-length research articles, case studies, theoretical essays, and reviews. Papers should adhere to the www.revistatransilvania.ro guidelines. Manuscripts should be between 6,000 and 8,000 words, including references. Abstracts of 200-300 words should be submitted along with the manuscript. All submissions must follow the Revista Transilvania citation and style guidelines (Chicago), available on the journal’s website. Manuscripts should be submitted in English or Romanian.

Important Dates

Abstract Submission Deadline: November 15, 2024

Notification of Abstract Acceptance: December 15, 2024

Full Paper Submission Deadline: February 15, 2025

Peer Review Feedback: April 15, 2025

Final Revisions Due: May 31, 2025

Submission Process

Please send your abstract and full manuscript to the guest editors via email at [revistatransilvania@muzeulastra.com] with the subject line “RT2025 Ideologies of Contemporary Music in Romania.”

For further information regarding the special issue, submission guidelines, or any inquiries, please contact the editorial team at the same email address.

Guest Editors

Ștefan Baghiu, Mihnea Bâlici & Mihai Țapu

We look forward to receiving your submissions and contributing to the scholarly conversation on contemporary music and its ideological dimensions in Romania.

Further reading

Alex Ross, The Rest is Noise. Listening to the Twentieth Century (2007)

David Novak, Japanoise. Music at the Edge of Circulation (2013)

David Stubbs, Fear of Music. Why People Get Rothko but Don’t Get Stockhausen (2009)

David Stubbs, Future Days. Krautrock and the Building of Modern Germany (2018)

David Stubbs, Mars by 1980. The Story of Electronic Music (2019)

David Toop, Into the Maelstrom: Music, Improvisation and the Dream of Freedom Before 1970 (2016)

David Toop, Ocean of Sound. Ambient sound and radical listening in the age of communication (2018)

DeForest Brown, Jr., Assembling a Black Counter Culture (2022)

Dinu Guțu, Ciprian State (coord.), Hipsteri, bobos și clase creative (2019)

Enrico Monacelli, The Great Psychic Outdoors: Lo-Fi Music and Escaping Capitalism (2023)

Gavin Butt, Kodwo Eshun, Mark Fisher (coord.), Post-Punk Then and Now (2016)