The History of Music Culture in Gdansk and West Prussia. Prospects of Transnational Research

The procedures and results of the discourse analysis will be linked, right from the beginning, to a case study, which on the one hand poses autochthon specific problems, on the other hand, however, also opens up the possibility to re-attach the bearing strength of the scientific conceptions and the results of general interpretation paths permanently to historically individual procedures and data.

The 'Country located on the Lower Weichsel' is in an outstanding position to take over this exemplary function because it has absorbed particularly varied ethnic and linguistic influences, culturally, but also politically having experienced many centuries of chequered history in German-Polish relationships and furthermore having been exposed to the fate of 'flight and expulsion' in two waves, and thus particularly emphatically. – In this field the intention is to ask in exemplary terms about the significances of the phenomenon of music in connection with a culture of displaced persons, by discussing in detail the transformation processes activated by political power and force, the specific strategies of socio-cultural distinction and identification as well as the inter-cultural structure of relationships and the concepts of value negotiated at the different stages.

This conceptual formulation ultimately implies that within this scheme not only methods of ethnomusicology and the ethnography of music are to be applied, but also cultural-scientific and media-archeologically orientated formulations of questions about (cultural) storage procedures, forms of remembering and their effects on music-scientific research will be unfurled.

To find out more, please take a look at the programme of the international workshop "The History of Music Culture in Gdansk and West Prussia. Prospects of Transnational Research", which took place from 11th to 13th September 2008 in Bonn.