Sound, Meaning, Education: CONVERSATIONS & improvisations

University of Guelph/IICSI, October 20-22, 2023
Proposal Deadline: June 1, 2023

SME | CFP (Call for Proposals)

Sound, Meaning, Education (SME) invites researchers, artists, and/or teachers to submit proposals for an in-person conference to be held at the University of Guelph, October 20-22, 2023. The conference will gather all manner of curricular innovators to share research/scholarship, pedagogical strategies, narratives/stories, performances, and imaginings for the purpose of building infrastructures that support sound and meaning explorations within teaching and learning contexts.

As an organization, SME responds to and is part of: 1) the sensory turn in the academy, 2) recent technological and experiential shifts in how music and sound are created/heard/disseminated, and 3) the re-orienting of human existences toward ecological resonance (SME Guiding Statement). The 2023 conference continues in these veins via a partnership with the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation (IICSI) at the University of Guelph and will co-convene with the fourth annual Improvisation Festival (IF). As such, the conference will emphasize improvisations, as related to sound theory/research and pedagogical practice, along with CONVERSATIONS, as related to sound theory/research and pedagogical practice. To that end, three session types comprise the conference schedule: research talks (15 min + 15 min Q&A), interactive workshops (60 min), and improvisational performances (60 min). Keynotes and guest artists are forthcoming.

SME is, by nature, interdisciplinary. As such, we encourage proposals/projects of all methodologies; please be specific in that regard. Proposal topics include, but are not limited to:

• Pedagogical encounters in/with sound and improvisation thereof. (PK-16, community-based programs, etc.) 
• Creative and critical intersections between sound, music, improvisation and education.
• Ecological/relational impacts of human engagements with sound/music.
• Sensuous scholarship and phenomenological studies centered around sound, improvisation, and pedagogy.
• Embodied and cognitive processes with sound/music.
• Sound/music narratives and narrative inquiries in music/sound learning contexts.
• Multi-sensorial engagements with sound/music as related to inclusivity and disability studies, and/or other areas of inquiry.
• Social and political structures that inform and constitute sound/music experience and sound/music pedagogies.
• Philosophy of sound and music as related to technology, identity, the environment, and/or education.

Proposals should include the following:

• Proposal type: Research Talk, Interactive Workshop, or Improvisational Performance
• 500-word summary (PDF)
• 100-word bio (PDF)
• Optionally, one additional media file may be submitted for workshop and performance proposals
• Technical requirements, if any

Submit to Jashen Edwards and Rebecca Rinsema at [email protected] by June 1, 2023.

Proposals will be reviewed according to:

1. Objectives or purposes as they relate to the conference theme(s)
2. Perspective(s) and/or theoretical framework
3. Methods, techniques, and/or modes of inquiry
4. Data sources, evidence, objects, and/or materials
5. Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view
6. Scientific, scholarly, artistic, and/or pedagogical significance of the project