*** With apologies for cross-posting ***

Dear screen media musicologists,

The deadline for the upcoming conference MUSIC AND HUMOUR IN FILM AND TELEVISION (30 March-1 April 2017 at Kiel University, Germany) has been extended

until December 20, 2016.

We are looking forward to your submission (and are happy to answer any questions) - for details please see the Call for Papers below.

Guido Heldt, Tarek Krohn & Willem Strank for the Kiel Society for Film Music Research

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Call for Papers

"Music and Humour in Film and Television" - International conference at Kiel University (Germany), 30 March – 1 April 2017
 
Humour is difficult. Not so much in life, where it is all around us almost all of the time (when we talk to others, be they friends or strangers, we laugh on average once about every 100 seconds). But in academic study, the career of humour has been patchy, even in disciplines such as psychology or linguistics, which have done the bulk of research. This is nowhere truer than in music and musicology, neither of which is known for its great sense of humour.

In film and television, humour is pervasive (as is music): in the manifold forms of comedy, and in many funny moments in other genres and contexts. But how do the two work together? In the vertiginous expansion of screen-media musicology over the last generation, the role of music in screen humour has been largely ignored (or avoided), be it because of the seeming frivolity of the topic or the challenges it poses. There is but a handful of articles on fundamental questions of film music and humour theory, and no coherent body of work on music in film and TV comedy.

The upcoming conference at Kiel University hopes to contribute to filling that gap on the map of screen media musicology. The title is meant to define the topic as broadly as possible, and to allow for a wide range of questions and approaches. The following is not an exhaustive list, but just indicative of the kinds of aspects of music’s contribution to screen humour that could be addressed:

·     Screen-media music and theories of humour
·     Film and TV comedy: how does music help contribute to the humour in comedies, and how does it define spaces where the writ of humour does not run (e.g. in romantic or musical comedies)?
·      Music and humour in non-comedic genre contexts
·      Music and humour in non-fictional forms, especially on TV: news, current affairs programmes, reality TV, documentaries, advertising etc.
·      Music and comedic performance, be it in “comedian comedies”, sketch shows, TV stand-up comedy
·      Music and humour in serial forms (TV series, franchises etc.)
·      Typical ways of using music for humorous purposes in particular genres, periods of cinema and TV history, in particular national or cultural contexts, or in the work of particular studios, directors, composers, music directors etc.
·       Funny music, i.e. music that is in itself perceived as humorous
·       Musical clichés and their (intentional or unintentional) humorous potential
·       Sight-and-sound gags, or rather, sight-and-music gags: gags that rely on the interaction of music and other filmic elements
·       Music, humour and other film sound (e.g. music standing in for sounds, sounds used like music etc.)
·       Music, humour and movement in slapstick, musical comedies etc.
·       Music and intertextual humour: quotations, heard and unheard song lyrics, pastiche, parody etc.
·       Music and irony
·       Music in the context of camp and trash
·       Involuntary musical humour
 
The conference language will be English. If you are interested in presenting a paper, please submit an abstract (up to 200 words) and a short biography (up to 100 words) to [log in to unmask]
The deadline for submissions is 20 December 2016. A selection of papers from the conference will be published either in the Kieler Beiträge zur Filmmusikforschung, the peer-reviewed online journal of the Kieler Gesellschaft für Filmmusikforschung, or in a separate edited collection.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at the above e-mail address, and do not hesitate to distribute this call for papers to anyone you think might be interested in it.
 
Willem Strank, Tarek Krohn and Guido Heldt for the Kieler Gesellschaft für Filmmusikforschung (Kiel Society for Film Music Research)