The Society for Ethnomusicology – 2020 Annual Meeting (SEM 2020)

The Society for Ethnomusicology will hold its 65th Annual Meeting on October 22-25, 2020, at the Westin Ottawa Hotel in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The meeting will be co-hosted by the Canadian Museum of History, Carleton University, and Queen’s University. A pre-conference symposium, “Musical Activism and Agency: Contestations and Confluences,” will be held on October 21 at the Canadian Museum of History, across the Ottawa River in Gatineau, Quebec.
For information on all meeting arrangements, including a copy of this call for proposals, please visit the SEM 2020 area of the SEM website (www.ethnomusicology.org).
The SEM 2020 Program Committee asks participants to submit their best work on any topic related to ethnomusicology and to be creative with presentation formats. In addition, we suggest that SEM sections, special interest groups, and other constituent units consider sponsoring organized sessions. Though we will not give any preference to sponsored sessions during abstract review, pre-submission consultation among group members typically improves the quality of abstracts and increases the likelihood of their acceptance.
All abstract submitters and members of groups that are reviewing/sponsoring abstracts are advised to read carefully all of the below submission requirements, such as the abstract word limit, the prohibition against naming session participants in an abstract, and the limit on the number of presentations by an individual.
Based on previous Annual Meeting attendee surveys, we also encourage organized panels that comprise a mix of junior and senior scholars from multiple institutions, and include a separate panel chair (i.e., a chair who does not present a paper on the panel). In addition, we encourage panels with presenters from more than one country.
The online deadline for submission of all proposals is 5:00 pm EST, Friday, February 14, 2020.
Please note that all presenters must hold a current SEM membership and must pre-register for the conference. Presenters who do not meet these two requirements by July 1, 2020, will be dropped from the program and will not be permitted to present at the SEM 2020 Annual Meeting.
Proposals for the Annual Meeting are invited in 8 categories, as outlined below. All proposals must include a proposal form and an abstract. When submitting a proposal, first select the appropriate form:
A. Individual Presenter Form for single paper, performance or lecture-demonstration, film/video, and workshop (participatory).
B. Organized Session Form