Call for chapters: ‘Gonna Live Forever’: places of health and wellbeing in popular music’

Gavin Andrews, Robin Kearns, Paul Kingsbury & Neil Forrester would like to hear from academics interested in contributing to an edited book, potentially to be published in the Ashgate Health Geographies Series.

The book will be focused on the dynamics between music, health/wellbeing and place. It will engage critical with how the production and consumption of popular music are associated both positively and negatively with health and wellbeing. At one level it will consider charity causes, political involvement, forms of activism and celebrity. In other words, how music can be a powerful force to promote the health of individuals, populations and places. At another level it will engage with the subtle ways in which music works emotionally for individuals and groups.

Chapters might be based on a particular musician or band, a particular musical genre or style, a musical technique or practice, instrument or technology, format, place, time period, disease health or social context. Possible topics might include, for example, reggie, psychedelia, hip hop, indie, punk, two-tone, famine, AIDS, urban violence, the live album, the reverb pedal, busking, dancing, music therapy, the daily commute, TV talent shows, breaking up or leaving home. To maximize the book’s coverage in this broad and under-researched field, chapters will be relatively short at 3500 words each. They might be critical reviews/discussions or include empirical research and the analysis of data.

The book will be aimed at senior undergraduate students, graduate students and faculty working across sub-disciplines of human geography (including, in particular, health geography, social geography, cultural geography and urban geography). It should also be of interest across other social sciences and humanities (including sociology, cultural studies, media and communication studies and musicology) and certain health sciences (including music therapy, holistic health and health care, and critical public health).

If you would like to be involved, please send a 200 word abstract to Gavin Andrews (andrews@mcmaster.ca) by the end of February 2011. Once the abstracts are collected and considered, those selected will be included in a full proposal which will be submitted to the book series editors.