Call for papers ATeM N°10,1 (2026)
Polarizing Songs in Romance Languages
Disputes, conflicts, debates, partisanships and even scandals play a big role in popular music. Excitement that trigger rivalry within the audience, as well as among critics and artists, can be traced in a variety of different contexts. Nevertheless, each context can be perceived as unique and relevant by any distinct social or cultural group. The call aims at analysing the role that songs play within different processes of polarization. In the past, arguable violations of moral rules have activated intense discussion. One can think of “Je t’aime moi non plus” by Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot, successfully performed also by Jane Birkin, or of “Bocca di Rosa” by Fabrizio De André (both songs were released in 1967). Today, songs that touch on issues related to gender and sexuality seem to spark
discussions around gender violence – recent instances in this domain are “Sale Pute” by Orelsan, 2009, or “Fuiste mia” by Gerardo Ortiz, 2016 – and around discrimination towards the LGBTQ+ communities. Political messages expressed through music may have resulted in appreciation or violent dismissal by different sectors of the public (one example might be Arbeit Macht Frei, the title of the first release of the Italian band Area, in 1973). The possible reasons or causes for the polarization of the actors involved in the production and/or reception of popular music are extremely diverse: besides gender and politics, culture, religion, history and memorization, nationalism, as well as questions of artistic ownership and cultural appropriation can be considered.
The call aims at creating a discussion around motivations, practices and processes through which a song can generate opposite sides. Alongside analyses of the songs, the call invites articles dealing with processes of re-signification, as they might occur even decades after the release of a song and completely transform the ways in which it is sung, remembered, and reused (also through practices of sampling and remixing). One of the main goals is to illuminates the ways in which popular music offers possibilities to express a polarization, which ends up modifying meanings as well as historical and cultural legacies of sounds and lyrics. Resignifications might also be the result of transnational processes, that are related to conflicts, wars, colonization or processes of de-colonization. Contributes that deal with the aforementioned questions, or other related issues, are welcome. Articles will draw on songs, albums, videoclips, and musical performances as case studies. According to the scope of the journal, the case studies should be part of artistic and cultural expressions that make use of romance languages. The call is open to analyses from a wide spectrum of possible methodologies, including literary, cultural, linguistic, historical, anthropological, ethnographic, ethnomusicological and musicological, with a special interest on interdisciplinary approaches (preferably also in the form of a ‘four-handed’ contribution, as favored by our journal).
Proposals for articles, including a tentative title, should be submitted by March 15, 2025 (atem-journal@uibk.ac.at). Deadline for the submission of articles, that will undergo a double-blind peer-review, is July 15, 2025.
We also ask for reviews of relevant publications. A list of book publications to be reviewed can be found on the journal’s website under “Publishing”, but suggestions can always be submitted. Finally, texts such as reports on conferences, projects, and concerts, presentations of institutions or collections, speeches, obituaries, etc. can be submitted for the “Forum” section. The deadline for reviews and forum contributions is August 31, 2025. The issue will be published in January 2026.
We are looking forward to exciting contributions.
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The editors
Gianpaolo Chiriacò (giovanni.chiriaco@uibk.ac.at)
Gerhild Fuchs (gerhild.fuchs@uibk.ac.at)
Valentina Fusari (valentina.fusari@unito.it)
Ursula Mathis-Moser (ursula.moser@uibk.ac.at)
Birgit Mertz-Baumgartner (birgit.mertz-baumgartner@uibk.ac.at)