"DJ Culture": special issue for Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture

"DJ Culture": special issue for Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture
Call for Participation

We are guest editing a special issue on DJ culture for Dancecult (http://dj.dancecult.net) scheduled for possible publication in 2011. This is a call for submissions for an interdisciplinary collection of original articles, “from the floor” essays, artwork, and electronic multimedia on DJ culture. The issue addresses itself specifically to the relations of pleasure and power that intersect in the space between the DJ, the dance floor and the rest of the club world. Multimedia submissions are encouraged, including copyright permitted photographs, links on Youtube, Soundcloud, etc.

Our special issue collects reflections from DJ perspectives on the visionary and social dimensions of DJ culture in Electronic Dance Music (EDM). Electronic dance music, and its DJs, producers and promoters have become increasingly central to popular culture in its various spatial configurations; translocally, glocally, as well as transnationally. The DJ has been a key figure in popular music since the 1970s, as the superstars and gatekeepers of today's music and club industry. As artists and specialized guides to musical worlds, DJs are uniquely positioned in today's music scenes, but they usually tell their stories through soundscapes, weaving together auditory elements and influencing the bodies, moods and emotions of dance crowds. This issue offers creative and intellectual accounts from DJ perspectives, featuring contributions from established DJs/writers situated in various kinds of spatial and cultural configurations. Submissions may address the legal, technological, commercial and social developments and conditions that constrain and liberate DJs, the power dynamics of the music scene, and its position in wider socio-historical processes. Contributors may investigate situated “behind the scenes” experiences of DJs, producers and club promoters in EDM. In addition, they explore conditions for belonging and recognition across various genres. Based on lived experiences, the issue discusses the ways the media and music industries package and categorize DJs and their scenes, as well as their strategies to negotiate and exit such limitations. For instance, contributors raise issues around gendering, sexualization and ethnification. Please do consult author´s guidelines: http://dj.dancecult.net/index.php/journal/about/submissions#authorGuidel... and previous issues: http://dj.dancecult.net

Please consider making your contribution as either a featured article (5000-8000 words) or a “From the Floor” essay (1500-3000 words) and send a 150 word abstract to the guest editors below by May 1st 2010. The deadline for first drafts is December 1st 2010. The contributions will initially be reviewed by the guest editors and subsequently be peer reviewed by the journal.

Please send submissions to both guest editors via electronic mail:

Bernardo Attias: bernardo.attias AT csun.edu
Anna Gavanas: anna.gavanas AT framtidsstudier.se

About the Guest Editors

Bernardo Alexander Attias (DJ Professor Ben)
Dr. Attias is Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication Studies, part of the Mike Curb College of Arts, Media, and Communication at California State University, Northridge. His research is in the areas of cultural studies, performance studies, and freedom of speech; his current research focuses on the legal, aesthetic, and cultural implications of the turntable. He has also been active as a DJ and performance artist for over twenty years; he is known for his eclectic blending of various elements of global urban dance music, including house, hip-hop, techno, and drum and bass, with sloppy funk, old jazz, lounge, and swing.

Anna Gavanas (DJ Gavana aka DJplaneten)
Dr. Gavanas is Associate Professor at the Institute for Futures Studies in Stockholm/ Sweden. As a social anthropologist she has published on a number of international policy topics. She has also explored popular culture issues around European DJ culture, technology and gender. Her latest publications include the book “Feedback Loop; gender and popular music” (published in Swedish 2009 at Makadam publishers). Gavanas has been active as a DJ in Sweden, as well as in the U.S., the U.K. and Germany, for over 10 years (spanning over genres like UK steppas dub, dubstep, techno and electronica) and is also producing various forms of electronic music as Gavana as well as DJplaneten (see www.soundcloud.com/gavana and www.soundcloud.com/djplaneten).