The Department of History, Archaeology and Social Antropology of the University of Thessaly (Volos, Greece) in association with the The Society of Ethnomusicology (Special Interest Group for European Music) organise a conference aiming to explore and analyse the various aspects of the Eurovision Song Contest in all its complexity.
The conference, entlitled "Singing Europe: Spectacle and Politics in the Eurovision Song Contest" takes place at the University of Thessaly in Volos, Greece between 29th February and 2nd March 2008. The contest is looked at from the musical, anthropological, sociological, political, sexual, linguistical, technical and economical points of view.
Issues such as the use of the contest by various countries for political reasons, the economy of the event, the politics of language, the rise and fall of Ireland in the contest, 'Swedishness' versus 'Europeaness' in the Melodifestivalen, the 2007 debut of the Czech Republic and whether Eurovision is "kitch or camp" will be discussed during the conference among others.
The key note speakers are: Marc Abélès (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales) , Philip V. Bohlman (The University of Chicago) , Martin Stokes (Oxford, St. John's College). The impressive list of participating speakers spans geographicly from Greece to Serbia, the USA, the UK, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Ireland, Cyprus, Sweden, Germany and Denmark.
Some of the presentations include:
-Dean Vuletic (Department of History, Columbia University, U.S.A.)
A show of non-alignment: Yugoslavia's international relations and the Eurovision Song Contest
-Tony Langlois (Department of Music, University College Cork, Ireland)
The singing tiger: the rise and fall of Eurovision Ireland
– Milija Gluhovic (School of Theatre, Performance and Cultural Policy Studies, University of Warwick, U.K.)
The ethnic drag from the East: performing race, nation, and sexuality in the Eurovision Song Contest
– Ioannis Polychronakis (Department of Musicology, St Hugh's College, University of Oxford, U.K.)
Greece in Eurovision: 'a song for Europe'?
– Vaclav Stetka (Department of Media Studies and Journalism, Masaryk University, the Czech Republic)
Unintended effects of a media event: Czech Republic in its first Eurovision Song Contest
More information as well as the full programme can be found here
