CfP: Book Series – Activist Encounters in Folklore and Ethnomusicology (Indiana University Press)
Call for Proposals: Activist Encounters in Folklore and Ethnomusicology
Indiana University Press
Indiana University Press invites proposals for new manuscripts for the Activist Encounters in Folklore and Ethnomusicology book series. This series seeks to align the practice of folklore and ethnomusicology with pressing social, political, and cultural realities of the contemporary world. It foregrounds scholarship that uses expressive cultural practices—oral traditions, music, performance, ritual, festival cultures, and related expressive phenomena—to generate engaged, interventionist research that extends beyond academic analysis toward emancipatory knowledge production, direct policy impact, and social transformation. Indiana University Press
The series is especially interested in work that demonstrates deep ethnographic engagement, thoughtful critical reflection, and a clear commitment to communities, movements, and contexts of struggle. We welcome submissions that address issues of racial justice, decolonial praxis, gender and sexuality, labor and class formations, ecological crisis, migration and displacement, and other areas where folklore and ethnomusicology intersect with struggles for justice and collective liberation. Indiana University Press
Proposals from established and early-career scholars are equally welcome. Interdisciplinary and collaborative projects, including those with community partners, are especially encouraged.
Series Orientation
The Activist Encounters series aims to invigorate ethnographic research as a means of direct intervention both within and beyond the academy. Using expressive cultural practices as a foundation, the series makes critical interventions into how we understand and respond to contemporary social, political, and cultural crises.
Published Titles in the Series
Here is a list of titles previously published under the Activist Encounters in Folklore and Ethnomusicology series:
The Soul of a Folklorist (Ann K. Ferrell and Diane E. Goldstein) Indiana University Press
Musical Argonauts of Central Asia (Theodore Levin) Indiana University Press
Festival Activism (edited by David A. McDonald, Andrew Snyder, Jeremy Reed) Indiana University Press
Deep Cosmopolitanism (Leah Lowthorp) Indiana University Press
Mele on the Mauna (Joseph Keola Donaghy) Indiana University Press
Composing Aid (Oliver Shao) Indiana University Press
At the Crossroads of Music and Social Justice (edited by Brenda M. Romero, Susan M. Asai, David A. McDonald, Andrew G. Snyder, Katelyn E. Best) Indiana University Press
Theorizing Folklore from the Margins (edited by Solimar Otero and Mintzi A. Martínez-Rivera) Indiana University Press
Black Lives Matter and Music (edited by Fernando Orejuela and Stephanie Shonekan)
Inquiries may be sent to Dr. David A. McDonald, Indiana University (davmcdon[at]iu[dot]edu)