Song beyond the nation: translation, transnationalism, and performance

This conference brings together musicologists, modern linguists and cultural historians to examine the work of four major poets – the Persian Hafiz, the German Heine, the American Whitman, and the French Verlaine – and how their verse has been set to music by a wide range of composers. Most crucially, this conference looks at how poetry and song exist not just within individual national traditions, but across national, linguistic and cultural boundaries through acts of creative translation, transposition, imitation and performance. At the heart of the conference is an emphasis on song’s mobility and malleability – and its power to challenge pervasive accounts of music’s role in the formation of exclusively national cultures.

Convenors:
Professor Philip Ross Bullock, University of Oxford
Professor Laura Tunbridge, University of Oxford

Speakers include:
Professor Helen Abbott, University of Birmingham
Dr Benjamin Binder, Duquesne University, USA
Dr Dominic Brookshaw, University of Oxford
Dr Carlo Caballero, Colorado University, USA
Professor Terence Cave, University of Oxford
Professor Suzannah Clark, Harvard University, USA
Professor Peter Dayan, Edinburgh University
Professor Stephen Downes, Royal Holloway, University of London
Dr David Evans, University of St Andrews
Professor Elisabeth Helsinger, Chicago University, USA
Dr Natasha Loges, Royal College of Music, London
Dr Ceri Owen, University of Cambridge
Professor Lawrence Kramer, Fordham University, USA
Dr Jennifer Ronyak, Graz 
Dr Emma Sutton, University of St Andrews

Registration
This conference will take place at the University of Oxford. A registration fee is payable at the time of booking. For further information and details of how to book please click 'Book Event' 

Image © Stamp of Walt Whitman by USPS, via Wikimedia Commons