Call for Papers

Musica e Storia

Special Issue (n.s. 2, 2026) on “Music-Making Between Resistance and Oppression”

in collaboration with SIMM and Music Beyond Borders

Guest Editors are: Janie Cole (University of Connecticut), and Lukas Pairon, (SIMM)

The Fondazione Levi in Venice has planned a new series of its renowned journal Musica e Storia, founded in 1993, with its first series discontinued in 2010. The first issue of the new series (2025) is currently in print and is dedicated to “Monteverdi’s Rediscovery in the Twentieth Century,” based on a workshop of the same name held at the Fondazione Levi in 2022, edited by Anna Tedesco and Dinko Fabris. A CFP is now open for the second issue of the new series of Musica e Storia (2, 2026), a special edition dedicated to music-making as resistance and oppression, which will focus on the interplay between music-making as both resistance and oppression in global contexts, preferably in the 20th– and 21st centuries, to be guest edited by Janie Cole (University and ) and Lukas Pairon (SIMM / Chair Jonet of University of Gand).

 

This special issue seeks to explore historically research on theoretical and methodological questions concerning the intersections between music-making practices, resistance and oppression in the past (20th/21st-century) at different locations around the world. Both oppression and resistance have shaped social movements, historical events, communities and human lives throughout the course of the 20th century, with music-making often mirroring socio-political developments on the ground, being used as a vehicle to resist violence, oppression and trauma, to support human rights and activism, but also as a tool of torture. We invite articles that address these themes and the dichotomy between music-making as resistance, as well as music-making as torture, in different locales of the globe, including (but not limited to) from Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe. With the aim of enhancing our understanding of how music-making might contribute to resisting racial, violent and genocidal processes, contributions may interact with various fields and discuss music-making, resistance and oppression from theoretical and practical standpoints, drawing from cross-disciplinary resources in post-colonial studies, sound studies, psychology, trauma studies, sociology, history, philosophy, anthropology, and gender studies.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

  • Definitions and challenges to the trope “music-making as resistance” or “musical resistance”
  • Music-making as a tool of resistance against individual and/or mass violence
  • Assimilations of musical repertories as oppositional acts, but not originally intended as such
  • Music-making as group resistance against violence and radicalization, and its effectiveness
  • Cultural traditions that support the development of musicians opposed to violence
  • Music-making as activism and/or supporting human rights
  • Music-making as a tool of resistance against genocide (such as the Holocaust, genocides in Armenia, Rwanda, Guatemala, Indonesia…)
  • Case studies of individual musicians/composers resisting oppressive states or societies
  • Music-making as alleviating trauma
  • Music-making as torture and causing trauma
  • The musical language of torture and trauma
  • Ethical responsibility in discussing music-making, trauma and torture

The articles committee welcomes proposals for individual articles of around 7,000 words. Please send an abstract (300 words) and a short biographical note (200 words max) as Word documents along with your name and affiliation to Janie Cole (University of Connecticut,  janie.cole@uconn.edu) and Lukas Pairon (SIMM / Chair Jonet,  lukaspairon@gmail.com), and in copy to Dinko Fabris (dinko.fabris@unibas.it, main editor of Musica e Storia at Fondazione Levi).

The deadline for submissions of abstracts is 31 December 2025. Acceptance notifications will be sent out by end of January 2026. Full articles will be expected at the latest by 15 May 2026 to allow time to go through the anonymous peer review process. The publication of the second issue of Musica e storia is planned at the end of 2026.