Start: April 3, 2026 12 p.m.
End: April 3, 2026 9 p.m.
Location: Alumni Center
The Midwest Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology (MIDSEM) is pleased to announce the call for papers for the chapter’s annual meeting on Friday-Saturday, April 3-4, 2026. The conference will be hosted by Ball State University as a fully in-person event, starting at noon EST on Friday and concluding around midday on Saturday. The registration fee is $20 ($10 for students) to cover coffee/tea breaks and lunch on both days.
We are thrilled that
Dr. Jeremy Wallach of Bowling Green State University, who is a renowned scholar of heavy metal music, including heavy metal music in Indonesia, will be giving the Keynote Address.
Call for Papers
The Program Committee invites proposals for individual papers (20 minutes in length with 10 minutes allotted for questions afterward), panel sessions of three or four papers on a related theme (15 minutes per paper), or roundtable discussions on all topics related to ethnomusicology, sound studies, and music studies, broadly conceived.
- Individual papers: please submit by email a title and abstract of 250 words or less (in a single Word or PDF attachment). Please do not include the name or affiliation of the presenter in the attachment. Abstracts should demonstrate a clear statement of the topic, coherent argument, knowledge of previous research, and a statement of the implications for ethnomusicology and/or music/sound studies.
- Panel session on a single topic: please submit by email from a single sender a Word or PDF document with a panel title, panel abstract (250 words or less), and 3 or 4 individual paper abstracts (individually titled, 250 words or less per abstract, no names or affiliation).
- Roundtable discussions: please submit by email (in a single Word or PDF attachment) a title for the session and an abstract of 250 words or less (no names or affiliations).
For all submissions, please include in the body of the email the name(s) of the presenter(s), along with institutional affiliation(s), if applicable.
Submission deadline: Monday, February 23, 2026, by 11:59pm EST
Proposals and inquiries should be sent to the MIDSEM Program Committee: Jeffrey Dyer at jeff.dyer@bsu.edu and Nan Yamprai at jyamprai@niu.edu.
The decisions of paper acceptance will be announced by March 2, 2026.