We invite everyone interested to participate in the International Conference „Spaces of Diversity? Polish Music Festivals in Changing Society”.

The Institute of Intercultural Studies (Jagiellonian University) invites everyone interested to participate in the International Conference „Spaces of Diversity? Polish Music Festivals in Changing Society” within the HERA - funded project „European Music Festivals, Public Spaces, and Cultural Diversity” (2019-2022), www.festiversities.org.

Festivals are a unique way of celebrating and sharing different communities and groups’ cultures, customs and creations. They allow artists, audiences, festival staff and critics to expand their knowledge and appreciation of others, while developing creative skills and improving hosting cities’ image on the global scale. Music may be considered an especially interesting art form in this regard, being a „universal language” that engages an individual fully, including their body and soul, simultaneously creating a specific sense of community with every other audience member. Yet, whereas music festivals have the potential to connect people and foster tolerance, they may also reproduce inequalities and social exclusion.

During the conference the socio-cultural role of music festivals shall be discussed from diverse academic and expert viewpoints. Most importantly, we want to focus on these events as spaces of encounters between individuals and cultures. Additionally, there will be discussed the formation and maintenance of communities surrounding music festivals, as well as their engagement in socio-political issues. Finally, it cannot be denied that the pandemic crisis of 2020-2021 has impacted and presumably will continue to impact the way these events are organized, which is why it is important to share ideas on how to deal with those changes.

We ask everyone interested to submit proposals of their presentations in English (up to 300 words) to the e-mail: FestiversitiesPL@gmail.com.

Deadline for submitting proposals:30th of June 2021
Information about the abstract acceptance:12th of July 2021
Deadline for submission of full papers: 22th of October 2021 (the guidelines for the authors will be providedalong with the information about the abstract acceptance)

Suggested thematic areas divided into three main sections:

1. Music festivals as spaces of dialogueand dispute

• Social criticism/protestin festival spaces
• Freedom of artistic and civil expression
• Challenges of cross-cultural encounters
• Maintaining stereotypes vs. going beyond them
• Functions of music festivals in changing Polish society

2. Music festivals as expression of equal opportunities and minorities’ rights

• Polish diaspora festivals outside Poland
• Women’s rights
• Ethnic minorities’ rights
• LGBT+ rights

3. COVID-19 restrictions and its consequences for the music festival sector

• New concepts of „liveness”
• New models of audience/accessibility/exclusion
• Transformations of festival communities
• Relations between artists & audience(new types of engagement/cooperation)
• Reactions of festivals’ organizers to the pandemic emergency: strategies of recovery/survival

Conference venue: Institute of Intercultural Studies, Jagiellonian University, Reymonta 4 St., Cracow.

The conference is planned as a live event, but we consider a possibility to turned it into anonline or hybrid event if the pandemic circumstances do not allow to run a live meeting.

The participation is free of charge. The organizers plan to publish selected articles as an edited collection in 2022.

Scientific committee:

• prof. dr hab. Tadeusz Paleczny - Chair
• dr hab. Franciszek Czech
• dr Karolina Golemo

Organizational committee:

• dr Karolina Golemo
• mgr Marta Kupis