Call for Papers for the December 2026 Issue: Circulating Sounds: Translation, Mediation, and Publics in Global Music Studies

Resonance: Journal of Global Music Studies invites submissions for its December 2026 issue.

Circulating Sounds: Translation, Mediation, and Publics in Global Music Studies

Music is not merely recorded, performed, preserved, or interpreted as a stable work. It is also transformed as it moves across languages, media, platforms, institutions, and listening communities. A translation, a cross-media adaptation, a recording or livestream of a performance, or a renewed act of listening may place music in a different context and generate new meanings.

For the December 2026 issue, we particularly welcome contributions engaging with the theme “Circulating Sounds: Translation, Mediation, and Publics in Global Music Studies.” Submissions on other topics within the broader scope of the journal are also welcome.

This issue invites reflection on how music is reinterpreted, reorganized, and reused through processes of circulation, and on how these processes shape audiences, media practices, forms of knowledge, and cultural politics. In recent years, musicology, ethnomusicology, popular music studies, media studies, translation studies, and area studies have increasingly examined music as a mobile cultural practice shaped by technologies, institutions, markets, platforms, and publics.

We welcome submissions addressing, but not limited to, the following topics:

• the translation of lyrics, titles, terms, musical concepts, and theoretical categories;
• musical adaptation and reinterpretation across film, theatre, short video, games, exhibitions, digital art, and other media forms;
• the recording, filming, livestreaming, archiving, and platform circulation of live performance;
• the transnational movement of local sounds, traditional musics, popular music, and experimental sound practices;
• the role of digital platforms, algorithmic recommendation, social media, and streaming infrastructures in musical circulation and reception;
• the ways translation, mediation, and circulation reshape musicological writing, source selection, analytical methods, and knowledge production;
• historical, ethnographic, sociological, linguistic, archival, and practice-based approaches related to the above issues.

Submissions should present a clearly articulated research question, strong engagement with relevant scholarship, and a well-defined methodology. Articles are expected to be grounded in concrete materials, cases, fieldwork, texts, archives, media practices, or creative practice, and to contribute to broader debates in global music studies.

The journal accepts submissions in English, Chinese, German, Italian, and Russian. All manuscripts must include an English title and abstract. Manuscripts should follow the journal’s submission guidelines and Chicago citation style.

Submissions and inquiries may be sent to:
[email protected]