Conference Agenda

Organized by the AMS Music, Sound, and Trauma Study Group.

In their summary of the history of trauma studies, Lucy Bond and Stef Craps note “the tendency to regard trauma as a transcultural, transnational, or global phenomenon is one of the most pronounced trends in trauma scholarship of the last decade” (2020, 104). Whereas earlier inquiries often emphasized European or American cultural traumas of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, contemporary work on trauma emerges everywhere, often with implicit postcolonial critiques of overly-universalist applications of trauma theory. As scholars of music and sound across the globe increasingly engage with—or live amidst—trauma, how do the different strands, understandings, and concerns about trauma studies shape these encounters? From differing understandings of cultural or collective traumas (Eyerman, Alexander, Neal) to the hegemony of certain trauma theories or theorists, what productive conversations and critiques can help this emerging scholarly subdiscipline avoid overly-narrow conceptions of trauma? These questions beckon us to consider not only the histories and current role of music and trauma studies, but also the singularities of trauma studies across the world.

Assisted by the online format of the 2026 AMS meeting, this year’s study group event features a roundtable exploration of these questions in partnership with a group of international scholars who work on music, sound, and trauma. This new association coalesced around 2022 via online events and study days, and has applied for recognition as a study group through the International Musicological Society. While individual scholars often attend both the AMS Study Group and online events held by this new international organization, this year’s AMS meeting would be the first opportunity for direct collaboration and dialogue between the two groups. With a focus on emerging global trends in studying music and trauma, we hope to make this collaborative venture the first of many cooperative encounters between these two groups. The roundtable will begin with comments by leaders of the AMS and proposed IMS study groups, followed by responses, questions, and discussion from additional panelists and attendees.