CfP: Sounding Things: Props, Material Culture, and Accessories in Popular Music (Deadline: 01.05.2026)
Call for Papers: Sounding Things: Props, Material Culture, and Accessories in Popular Music
Edited Collection
Abstract Deadline: May 1, 2026
Abstract Length: 350–500 words
Editors: Kate Galloway, Paxton Haven, and Mike Levine
Popular music is not only heard—it is handled, worn, staged, circulated, collected, and displayed. From glittering boots and gold chains to drum machines, masks, vinyl records, protest signs, friendship bracelets, and TikTok filters, popular music cultures are built from things. Objects do not merely accompany music; they shape performance, structure persona, mediate identity, circulate value, and materialize power.
This edited collection, Sounding Things: Props, Material Culture, and Accessories in Popular Music, centers the material culture of popular music. We seek contributions that examine how props, wearable accessories, stage objects, technological devices, fan artifacts, and digital commodities participate in the production of meaning across popular music cultures.
Drawing on popular music studies, ethnomusicology, media studies, fashion studies, performance studies, cultural studies, sound studies, feminist theory, and STS, the volume asks:
● How do props shape musical performance and choreograph the body?
● How do accessories materialize genre, race, gender, sexuality, and class?
● How do objects participate in the construction of star persona and brand identity?
● What is the “social life” of musical things—from production to circulation to afterlife?
● How do fan-made objects generate affective communities?
● How do digital objects (NFTs, avatars, filters, skins, AI-generated artifacts) function as musical props?
● How do material objects mediate authenticity, resistance, nostalgia, or spectacle?
We welcome historically grounded, ethnographic, theoretical, and interdisciplinary approaches. Contributors may draw on object biography, performance analysis, archival research, political economy, media archaeology, feminist and queer materialisms, or critical race methodologies.
Possible topics include (but are not limited to):
● Masks and anonymity (e.g., MF DOOM)
● Spectacle and stage props (e.g., Lady Gaga)
● Friendship bracelets and fan economies (e.g., Taylor Swift)
● Cowboy iconography and genre performance (e.g., Lil Nas X)
● Sneakers and hip-hop material culture
● Tour merchandise and scarcity marketing
● USBs, mixtapes, bootleg recording cultures
● Vinyl revival and material nostalgia
● Auto-Tune and vocal technologies as “sonic accessories”
● Drum machines and identity
● Mascots, animals, and nonhuman performers
● Protest objects in politically engaged music
● Digital skins, avatars, and virtual concerts
The collection moves beyond instruments alone to examine the full ecology of popular music objects—physical and digital, glamorous and everyday, official and bootlegged.
We particularly encourage submissions that engage transnational contexts, marginalized communities, and historically underexamined genres. Early-career scholars and scholars from underrepresented backgrounds are warmly invited to submit.
Submission Guidelines
Please submit:
● A 350–500 word abstract outlining your argument, methodology, and key intervention
● A brief bio (100–150 words)
● Institutional affiliation (if applicable)
Send submissions to: kate.a.galloway[at]gmail[dot]com
Subject line: Sounding Things CFP Submission
Abstract Deadline: May 1, 2026
Notification of Acceptance: May 25, 2026
Full Chapter Length: 5,000–6,000 words
Chapter Draft for Editorial Feedback: September 15, 2026
For inquiries, please contact: kate.a.galloway[at]gmail[dot]com