“What’s the name of the game?” ABBA, Northernness and Pop Culture

19-20th March 2026, Université de Lorraine, Nancy

The extraordinary global success of ABBA has made them one of the most enduring pop acts of all time. From their 1974 Eurovision victory with “Waterloo” to the sustained popularity of ABBA Gold, the Mamma Mia! musicals and films, and the recent Voyage project, ABBA’s impact extends far beyond the realm of music. Yet, despite their prominence in popular culture, ABBA have received relatively little academic attention, possibly due to the only recent acceptance of popular music as a field of academic research. This conference seeks to explore ABBA as a cultural and musical phenomenon, examining their significance through the lenses of nation branding, cultural transfers, reception, and broader questions of Northernness in pop culture. We invite papers that engage with ABBA’s legacy across a variety of disciplines, including musicology, cultural studies, popular music studies, media studies, gender studies, Scandinavian and British studies. Topics may include, but are not limited to:

1. ABBA and Identity ABBA can be seen to be representative of multiple identities: Swedish, Scandinavian, Northern European, as well as a transnational music identity as a Europop act, which they established by singing in English and through their extensive commercialization abroad. With this in mind, what is ABBA’s relationship to Northern European identity? How did ABBA contribute to forming an image of the North and what image do they provide? Did they make transnational European pop more Nordic, or Nordic pop more transnational? Topics may include:

• Scandinavian nation branding and soft power

• Economic significance for Sweden

• Images and mythemes of Scandinavia, construction of stereotypes

• Solo vs. group identity – members’ pre- and post- ABBA musical careers

2. ABBA as a Cultural Phenomenon

ABBA can be considered a broader cultural object beyond just music, attracting interest within the fields of cinema, museum studies, and cultural studies. ABBA’s status as a cultural object could be discussed in terms of:

• Use of ABBA’s music in films, or films about ABBA and their music

• ABBA’s place in British pop culture - the unusual success of a European band in the UK

• Circulation, cultural transfers and global impact in general

• International reception and success in different countries (public vs. critics)

• Marketing and capitalizing on ABBA’s success

• ABBA and cultural artifacts - the ABBA museum, Voyage hologram productions • ABBA fandom

3. ABBA as a Musical Phenomenon

Within the music world, they are not an isolated phenomenon, but represent a link between their predecessors and successors in pop and disco. They have had a lasting influence on the construction of disco as a genre and in the wider world of pop music. ABBA also represent a commercial pop paradigm for more alternative genres to push back against. The reach of ABBA’s influence might be discussed in terms of:

• ABBA’s role in the Eurovision Song Contest

• Influence on other artists, nationally and internationally

• Different periods: active years during the golden age of disco, legacy

• Covers and adaptations, remixes, sampling, and other forms of referencing or reinterpretation

• Genre building in disco and pop music

• Tribute bands and productions

• Musical reactions against ABBA and commercial pop

4. Politics, Gender, and Social Meanings

The first wave of ABBA coincided with the second wave of feminism. ABBA’s female members were sex symbols and symbols of empowerment. The act as a whole has been both appropriated and rejected by different social and political groups, either as a tool of empowerment in the construction of identity, or as a representation of everything wrong with a materialistic society, in contrast with the ideology of contemporary progressive, fringe or underground movements.

• Image of female members in relation to feminism, of the time and after

• ABBA as LGBTQ+ icons • Political associations (e.g., Theresa May and "Dancing Queen")

• ABBA as a representation of mainstream capitalist society

Abstracts of no more than 300 words, along with a biography of no more than 200 words, should be submitted by 01/10/2025 to abbaconferencenancy@gmail.com.

Organizing Committee: Rose Barrett (Lorraine), Claire McKeown (Lorraine), Julie Michot (Lorraine), Jeremy Tranmer (Lorraine)

Scientific Committee:

Oranie Abbes (Lorraine)

Sarah Benhaim (Lorraine)

Alf Björnberg (Göteborg)

Didier Francfort (Lorraine)

Elsa Grassy (Strasbourg)

Bernard Jeannot (Lorraine)

Kimi Kärki (Turku)

Isabelle Marc (Strasbourg/Complutense Madrid)

Morten Michelsen (Aarhus)

Giuseppe Pantano (Lorraine/Roma Tre)

Catherine Rudent (Paris 3)

Harri Veivo (Caen)