Venue: Theatre 2
Chair: Dr Felix Morgenstern
Presenter: Professor André Doehring
How does popular music acquire and convey political significance? This seminar draws on examples from the Austrian section of the international research project ‘Popular Music and the Rise of Populism in Europe’ (2019–2022, VW Foundation 94 754), based on ethnographies conducted at political campaign events, concerts, and folk festivals. While participants reported that they considered the music played at these events to be apolitical, I argue that music offers situational affordances that allow ideas of nativism and nation to be performatively embodied as ‘Volkskörper’ which can thus be beneficial to populist actors in an ‘assembled politicity’ (Doehring/Ginkel 2022). This is exemplified in a critical reflection on Tyrolean singer Hannah’s performative persona, musical arrangements (personic environment), and nationalist tropes of her music performances. Such assemblages of sound, human and non-human actors are revealed to performatively produce ‘the people’, a gender-segregated and nationalised audience, illustrating how political issues are carried from the extreme fringes of politics into the centre of society and normalised.
André Doehring is Professor of Jazz and Popular Music Research at the Institute of the same name at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz (Austria). His research and publications deal with musicological, socio-historical, cultural, political and media aspects of jazz and popular music.
Dr. Felix Morgenstern, is an IRC Postdoctoral Fellow, Irish World Academy of Music and Dance and Centre for the Study of Popular Music and Culture @UL.
Admission is free and all are welcome.