New Book Announcement (Apologies for cross posting)

Dear All,

Some colleagues may be aware of the book, The Oxford Handbook of Music & Virtuality, that I co-edited with the late Sheila Whiteley. I am pleased to announce that the book (and e-book) has been published. Please see below for more details on this exciting and momentous collection.  For more information, please contact me directly on: shararambarran@yahoo.co.uk. Thank you.

The Oxford Handbook of Music & Virtuality
Edited by Sheila Whiteley and Shara Rambarran
Publisher: Oxford University Press (New York)
Hardcover: ISBN 9780199321285
(Also available as an e-book)

‘Has the virtual invaded the realm of the real, or has the real expanded its definition to include what once was characterized as virtual? With the continual evolution of digital technology, this distinction grows increasingly hazy. But perhaps the distinction has become obsolete; perhaps it is time to pay attention to the intersections, mutations, and transmigrations of the virtual and the real. Certainly it is time to reinterpret the practice and study of music. The Oxford Handbook of Music and Virtuality, edited by Sheila Whiteley and Shara Rambarran, is the first book to offer a kaleidoscope of interdisciplinary perspectives from scholars around the globe on the way in which virtuality mediates the dissemination, acquisition, performance, creation, and reimagining of music. 

The Oxford Handbook of Music and Virtuality addresses eight themes that often overlap and interact with one another. Questions of the role of the audience, artistic agency, individual and communal identity, subjectivity, and spatiality repeatedly arise. Authors specifically explore phenomena including holographic musicians and virtual bands, and the benefits and detriments surrounding the free circulation of music on the Internet. In addition, the book investigates the way in which fans and musicians negotiate gender identities as well as the dynamics of audience participation and community building in a virtual environment. The handbook rehistoricizes the virtual by tracing its progression from cartoons in the 1950s to current industry innovations and changes in practice. Well-grounded and wide-reaching, this is a book that students of any number of disciplines, from Music to Cultural Studies, have awaited.’

USA:

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-music-and-virtuality-9780199321285?cc=us&lang=en&

UK:

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-music-and-virtuality-9780199321285?cc=gb&lang=en&

(Also: Amazon, Foyles and most online bookstores)

With warm regards,

Shara Rambarran 
shararambarran@yahoo.co.uk
https://queensu.academia.edu/SharaRambarran | https://twitter.com/sharadai

**apologies for cross posting**

Movement and Emotion as Computational Interfaces
Workshop :: Speaker Series :: a convergence of art, science, technology, and performance
June 6th - June 12th, 2016
York University • School of the Arts, Media, Performance, and Design • Toronto, Canada 
http://ndstudiolab.com/meci

**** REGISTRATION DEADLINE APRIL 30th!! ****

This workshop will explore how technology can help us create deeper connections with the world around us, each other, and ourselves by combining the latest advances in bioinformatic sensing technology with modes of physiological awareness found in somatic performance practice. Lead by an interdisciplinary team that have backgrounds in performance, computational media art, and bioengineering, the workshop will be a point of convergence for fields that are working in the larger domain of emotive research both internationally and within Canada. This includes consciousness hackers who explore how technology can positively change the way we think, feel, and live; performers and others who use somatic awareness as a tool for the recreation of authentic emotion; and computational media artists, who use technology to explore questions of human and machine through artworks that critique our techno-scientific world. The workshop is targeted for a diverse audience including students, emerging scholars and other highly qualified personnel from both the academic and private sectors. Participants are welcome from a variety of fields such as performance, somatic movement and awareness, computational media arts, entertainment, gaming, computer science, architecture, and other art/science collaborations.

* Workshop *
This seven day workshop will take place from June 6th - 12th and will explore how technology can help us create deeper connections with the world around us, each other, and ourselves by combining the latest advances in bioinformatic sensing technology with modes of physiological awareness found in somatic performance practice. Activities will include seminars and practicums on somatic performance and movement, and technical foundations on working with bioinformatic sensors with media based software.

* Speaker Series *
A speaker series will be running during the workshop from June 6th - June 10th, 2016. All talks during the workshop are free and open to the public.

Erika Batdorf
Monday June 6th, 2016
The Batdorf Technique: Kinesthetic Transference
and Interoceptive Awareness in Performance

Martha Eddy & Stephen Auger
Tuesday June 7th, 2016
The Embodied Physiology of Perception

Alan Macy
Wednesday June 8th, 2016
Bioinformatics and the Human-Computer Interface

Marcos Novak
Friday June 10th, 2016
Transverging Cognition and Creativity

With approximately 20.000 students and about 2.000 employees, including 1.200 researchers, the University of Siegen is an innovative and interdisciplinary university. The University of Siegen offers an excellent study and research environment encompassing humanities and social sciences, as well as economics, natural sciences and engineering and numerous interdisciplinary research projects. The University of Siegen offers manifold opportunities to combine profession and family, has been certified as a family friendly university (since 2006), and offers a dual career service.

The Department of Media Studies at the Faculty of Arts (Faculty I) aims to fill the position of a

University Professor of Media Anthropology

Salary Scale W 3 ÜBesG NRW

at the earliest possible date.

This is a newly created Professorship for research and teaching in the field of ethnographic media studies in its combination with theory formation in cultural anthropology. Results of such research will enhance the methodologies of qualitative media studies as well as the localised study of global interconnections in order to productively contribute to connected research areas and teaching in the field.

Successful applicants for this position are expected to have made excellent contributions in theory formation of cultural anthropology as well as in the area of qualitative (especially ethnographic) methods in international media ethnology research.

Ideally, the successful applicant will engage in the implementation of a practice theoretical research programme engaging with intercultural processes in European culture (especially relating to migratory movements) that could be connected to the Graduate Programme „Locating Media“ at the University of Siegen. The successful applicant is expected to actively contribute to the Special Research Project „Media of Cooperation“.

The successful applicant should have a proven track record of research, focussing on at least two of the following areas: visual anthropology, ethnomusicology, anthropology of religion, gender research, non-European regional expertise. Expertise in any of the areas mentioned above can be proven through research with either a contemporary or a cultural-historical focus.

Work in the respective areas should be informed by a strongly international and comparative research activity throughout, as well as by a thorough competence in methodologies that enable interdisciplinarity.

The successful applicant is expected to be willing to establish a teaching programme in methods of ethnographic media research for the degree programmes in cultural and media studies at the University of Siegen as well as to collaborate with other departments, not only at the Faculty of Arts, but also across relevant research areas within Faculty II and III. The teaching commitment of the advertised post is 9 hours per week.

Furthermore, the successful applicant is expected to hold relevant qualifications in didactics in tertiary education as well as to be an experienced university teacher. Additionally, we expect the successful applicant to be experienced with international and interdisciplinary research co-operations, as well as regarding the successful acquisition of research funds and the undertaking of research projects supported by third-party funds.

Apart from the general legal requirements for employment, the successful candidate should: hold a degree from an accredited university, have a proven record of academic work (usually demonstrated by the successful and excellent completion of a PhD), demonstrate additional academic achievements that will be exclusively and thoroughly assessed during the appointment process, have acquired extensive teaching experience and a proven didactic competence. Additional academic achievements can be demonstrated in the form of a previous appointment as Junior Professor, the successful completion of a Habilitation (venia docendi) or equivalent international qualification, or via previous employment as Assistant Professor, Research Associate, Lecturer, or equivalent international position at a university or a research institute outside of academia, or any other activity in academic research and teaching.

We expect the successful applicant to actively engage in the development of new research networks as well as her active and constructive participation in the university's academic administration.

The University of Siegen aims to increase the number of women in research and teaching and, thus, explicitly encourages applications from qualified female academics.

Furthermore, we encourage applications from qualified academics with disabilities.

For more information about this vacancy, please contact Prof. Dr. Erhard Schüttpelz: schuettpelz@medienwissenschaft.uni-siegen.de

Please send your application with the customary supporting documents (CV, copies of degrees and certificates, list of publications, description of previous research and teaching activity, list of projects supported by third-party funds, two reference contacts) no later than 24.06.2016, using the keyword „W3 Medienethnologie“, to the Dean’s Office of the Faculty of Arts, University of Siegen, Adolf-Reichwein-Straße 2, 57076 Siegen.

For further information about the University of Siegen, please visit our website www.uni-siegen.de.