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Reggae Innovation and Sound System CultureMARCH 21st-22nd 2018BIRMINGHAM CITY UNIVERSITY, BIRMINGHAMBirmingham City University and The University of West Indies are delighted to announce a forthcoming international conference on reggae culture and sound system innovation, and give notice of a forthcoming call for conference papers. Information on submission processes will be published in December. The conference will be hosted in The Royal Birmingham Conservatoire at BCU, with its world-leading concert venues and conference facilities. The conference will also allow you entry to a number of planned reggae events and performances.Running alongside the Arts Council-funded Let’s Play Vinyl sound system touring exhibition, hosted by Birmingham City University, the conference will engage academics with the wider sound system culture. The exhibition features specially commissioned photographs of a new generation of sound system operators, toasting and ‘build your own’ system workshops, and the opportunity for all ages to play records on a traditional reggae sound system, designed and built for the exhibition.The Reggae Innovation and Sound System Culture International Conference builds upon recent meetings of the Reggae Research Network (held throughout the UK in 2017), the Bass Culture Research Project and associated events, and the forthcoming Strictly Vinyl Sound System Outernational #4 in January at Goldsmiths, University of London, which aims to establish new approaches to reggae culture research.This Reggae Innovation conference promises to be a landmark event in reggae culture research, highlighting the music’s subgenres, crossovers, mashups, intersections, and innovations, featuring international academic guests and musicians. The conference will discuss reggae innovation, in particular theoretical and practical expressions of how innovation plays out through music and popular culture.Collectively, these events mark the first stage of a series of research and external engagement activities to investigate music diversity, cultural innovation, and visualisation. Like this conference, forthcoming events will place the spotlight on music heritage and innovation through a series of workshops and plenary sessions on visual culture, technology, and new collaborations.We would particularly welcome proposed papers that address the following conference sub-themes:·      Innovation through heritage, from mento to dancehall .·      Innovation for heritage beyond dancehall.·      Reggae musicians and innovation case studies.·      Reggae, music, and gender.·      Reggae and the music industry; new forms, new marketing, new audiences.·      Jamaica and diasporic sonicities.·       Reggae new music, new media, new technologies.·      Exploring reggae’s inner and outer spaces and locations.·      Reggae in and out of popular music studies.·      Creativity: from theory to practice; methods and processes.·      Reggae in transition: reinventing reggae- reconfigurations, collaborations, and crossovers.·      Reggae futures.We would also welcome presentations made through innovative uses of media, music and technology alongside traditional formats. Presentation proposals from musicians are welcome.Abstracts for individual or panel presentations of no more than 300 words per presentation, supported by a short biography no longer than 75 words per speaker, should be submitted to the conference organisers for international peer review. Details of the submission processes and deadlines will be published later in December.