Monday, September 12, 2016

From Yodelers to Punk-Rockers: Music in the American West

The Beat Farmers have nothing to do with this, but we thought that they could very well illustrate what we wanna do here.



REWEST Research Group is happy to announce that our next activity/gig/symposium will take place quite soon. And this time the slashes make sense. Our theme will be Music and the American West and it will be an invitation to explore the connections between literature and music as much as it could also be an expedition into associations between the American West and Western Europe. In other words, we will keep focusing on the themes, topics, obsessions and questions that we have been asking and trying to answer for a few many years now but this time by coming closer to music, lyrics and the cultural influence that songs have exerted on the West (and beyond), and/or also the questions that those songs have helped to raise about the West, either as a myth or as a region. 

This time, the arrangement of the activity will be that of a symposium. For two days, scholars from different colleges and countries will gather in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Basque Country, Spain, and we will enjoy presentations, round tables and additional activities such as live music. It will take place in November, 2-3, at the Faculty of Arts of the University of the Basque Country. The range of topics is ample and varied, but you could have anticipated that just by taking a look to the name of our symposium: From Yodelers to Punk-Rockers: Music in the American West.

The program will be released soon but so far we can anticipate that our keynote speakers will be: Professor Neil Campbell, from the University of Derby, one of the best experts on Western American culture and a fine enthusiast of music, Fernando Navarro, fiction writer and music journalist for El País, the highest-circulation daily newspaper in Spain, and Hendrik Röver, guitarist, songwriter and singer for Los DelTonos and many other musical projects. For more information, stay tuned. 

If you can't wait for more information or you want to contribute to this symposium, don't hesitate to get in touch with me at angel.chaparro@ehu.eus.