Call for Papers: American Music Special Issue on Vocality in the Americas

Deadline to indicate interest: May 15

Deadline to send preliminary submission information: June 15

CALL FOR PAPERS

SPECIAL ISSUE ON VOCALITY IN THE AMERICAS

The editorial team at American Music invites submissions for a special issue exploring vocality in the Americas. Considering vocality as an ontological and epistemological process—a vocal way of knowing the world and of being in the world, constructed intersubjectively by both singers/speakers and listeners—we encourage contributions that engage with one or more of the following themes:

• How ideas and ideologies of difference such as race and ethnicity, class, religion, sexuality, gender identity and expression, ability and disability are inscribed, produced, and/or critiqued in American vocalities.

• People navigating multivocality—multiple vocal ways of being—in the Americas.

• How vocality and/or multivocality figure in the crossing of geographical borders, particularly involving migrations, whether forced or voluntary.

• How Indigenous, colonized, imperialist, racialized, and/or immigrant vocalities have interacted, contextualized in the power structures that have shaped the Americas.

• How vocality serves as a material and metaphorical site of, and device in, resistance or control.

• The impact of American vocalities on national, regional, and global music industries.

• The impact of external vocalities (emerging outside of the Americas) on the U.S. music industry.

• Relationships between human and nonhuman vocalities and other sounds in the Americas—e.g. acoustemologies, technologies, nonvocal musical instruments, and non-anthropocentric conceptions and practices of vocality. How do vocalities inform these sounds, and vice versa?

We welcome submissions that employ interdisciplinary and innovative methodologies in the study of music in the Americas, especially when addressing underrepresented topics and perspectives. We welcome works by musicologists, ethnomusicologists, theorists, cultural studies scholars, anthropologists, sound studies scholars, performance studies scholars, media studies scholars, and others whose work intersects with the themes and topics outlined below. We are particularly interested in articles that engage with current debates and theoretical issues in these fields, as well as those that offer fresh perspectives on familiar topics. We also welcome submissions that include analysis of primary source materials, such as recordings, sheet music, or archival documents.

If you are interested in submitting to this special issue, please submit a statement of interest to americanmusiceditor -at- gmail.com by May 15, 2026.

Once you’ve indicated your initial interest, please send the following information to the same email address no later than June 15, 2026:

Bio (50 words)
Preliminary title
Abstract (300–350 words)
3–5 keywords

For accepted abstracts, complete manuscripts of no more than 7,000 words will be due November 30, 2026.

Please direct any questions to americanmusiceditor -at- gmail.com. We look forward to your submissions.