Popular Music and Public Diplomacy

musicaldiplomacy.org

Technische Universität Dortmund, Germany
6-7 November 2015

Conference Program

Friday, 6 November 2015

9:00 Introduction: Mario Dunkel, Walter Grünzweig, and Sina Nitzsche

9:15-10:15 Keynote: Martha Bayles:
 “Dancing in Chains: Why Music Cannot Keep the World Free”

10:45-12:15 Panel I: US Music Diplomacy in Cold War Eastern Europe

Zbigniew Lewicki (Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University, Warsaw, Poland):
 “The Role of American Music in Subverting Communist Propaganda (1945-1960)”

Maristella Feustle (University of North Texas, US):
 “Willis Conover and the ‘Soft Power’ of Jazz in the Cold War”

Rüdiger Ritter (Bremen University, Germany):
 “Jazz as Cold War Weapon or as Means of Cultural Transfer? Willis Conover's Jazz Broadcasts and their Reception in the Eastern Bloc”

13:15-14:45 Panel II: Cold War Music Diplomacy in Italy and East Germany: Recording, Performing, and Selling

Marilisa Merolla (“La Sapienza” University of Rome, Italy):
 “‘Good Morning, Naples!’ Sounds and Rhythms of American Propaganda in Naples during the Cultural Cold War”

Katharina Weißenbacher (University of Graz, Austria):
 “When Jazz Was Crossing the Berlin Wall”

Sven Kube (Florida International University, University Park, US):
 “Born in the USA––Made in the GDR: Western Pop Music in East Germany’s Recording Industry”

15:15-16:45 Panel III: Representation, Participation, and Empowerment

Alessandro Mazzola (University of Liège, Belgium):
 “‘Our Country is a Neighbouring Country’: The Paradoxes of Flemish Music Diplomacy in Federal Belgium”

Kendra Salois (American University, Washington, D.C., US): 
 “The ‘Next Level’ of Connection: the Ethics and Politics of Empathy in US Hip Hop Diplomacy”

Gesa zur Nieden (Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany):
 “From Sons of Gastarbeita to Songs of Gastarbeiter: Migrants’ Integration through Music as German Musical Diplomacy from the 1980s to the Present”

17:15-18:15 Panel Discussion: Theory and Practice of Popular Music and Public Diplomacy

  Saturday, 7 November 2015

9:00-10:00 Keynote: Klaus Nathaus (University of Oslo, Norway):
 “Transatlantic Transfers of Twentieth-Century Popular Music: Actors and Institutions”

10:30-12:00 Panel IV: Probing the Boundaries of Popular Music: Folk, Flamenco, and Sirtaki

Carlos Sanz Díaz and José Manuel Morales Tamaral (Complutense University of Madrid, Spain):
 “‘National Flamencoism’: Flamenco as an Instrument of Spanish Public Diplomacy in Franco’s Regime (1939-1975)”

Ádám Ignácz (Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary):
 “A Travelling Inquisition: Soviet Deputies of Popular Music in Stalinist Hungary”

Senem Çevik (University of California, Irvine, US):
 “Intractable Conflicts, Cross-Cultural Collaboration and Music”

13:00-14:00 “Musical Diplomacy in a Transnational Context”: Student Poster Presentation

14:00-15:00 Panel V: Diplomats: Politicians and Pop Stars in the 1980s

Susanne Scheiblhofer (Independent Scholar, Austria):
 “Stagecraft and Statecraft: The Sound of Music in International Diplomacy”

Nicholas Alexander Brown (Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., US):
 “Blue-Collar Diplomacy: Billy Joel and Bridging the U.S.-Soviet Divide in 1987”

15:30-17:00 Panel VI: Mediated Music Diplomacy at the Brink of the 21st Century: Eurovision, K-Pop, and the Dervish

Dean Vuletic (University of Vienna, Austria):
 “Public Diplomacy at the Eurovision Song Contest”

Nevin Şahin (Yıldırım Beyazıt University, Ankara, Turkey):
 “Eurovision and the Dervish: Interplays of Power”

James R Ball III (Texas A and M University, College Station, US):
 “Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the Politics of Participation”

17:00 Final Discussion