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The Swiss Journal of Musicology, a publication of the Swiss Musicological Society, is an openly accessible publication platform that aims to reflect current tendencies in international and Swiss musicological research and reach readers and researchers worldwide. In addition to the traditional areas of historical musicology, contributions from the fields of anthropology, theory and artistic research are welcome. The journal invites interdisciplinary proposals, as well as musically relevant research from other fields and encourages collaborations and perspectives that bridge several disciplines. Publication formats range from ‘classical articles’ to interviews or podcasts.

Call for Contributions on “Time and Temporalities in Music”, Schweizer Jahrbuch für Musikwissenschaft/ Swiss Journal of Musicology (SJM), vol. 42 (2025) 

For the fifth edition of the newly digital Open Access ‘Swiss Journal of Musicology’, the editorial team is delighted to invite authors of all nationalities and backgrounds to contribute articles on the theme of “Temporalities in Music”. Simultaneously, the SJM encourages authors involved in current projects at Swiss research institutions to present short articles or research accounts which can be thematic or non-thematic.

We invite scholars to examine various aspects of time and temporality in music, exploring how time engages with various borders: cultural, geographical, historical, representational, and theoretical. Different temporal frameworks and ontologies of music reflect the flexibility and porous nature of time as manipulated by composers, performers, music creators and (national) institutions throughout history and across the globe. 

Contributions may draw upon perspectives from musicology, ethnomusicology, music theory, music pedagogy, sound studies, and other disciplines like literature, linguistics, cultural history, comparative studies, film studies, gender studies, social studies or performance studies to understand how music uniquely organizes and reveals time. 

Among the topics that may be considered are: 

  • How are psychological phenomena like memory, anticipation or nostalgia shaped by temporal structures?

  • How do narrative devices, such as acceleration and flashback, operate within conventions across different historical and cultural contexts? 

  • How can we understand the complex interplay of different temporalities in music, including represented time versus time of representation, present versus evoked time, and the varying times of speech, action, affect, perception, etc.?

‘Music’ is taken in a broad rather than a narrow sense here, including all consciously and unconsciously, naturally and technically created sounds. This may comprise any composed or improvised music, community musics and musicking processes, sound performances or indeed acoustic phenomena of any kind, whether emerging in the context of a concert, a composition, a social setting, or existing as sounds (or soundscapes) within a natural or human environment. 

Full-length articles should not exceed 40’000 char. (incl. spaces and footnotes). All main articles will be submitted to double blind peer review. 

Shorter contributions are also accepted for publication in the “Times and Perspectives” section. These should not exceed 10’000 char. (incl. spaces and footnotes), and may have varying formats, for example a written, audio or visual presentation of an original historical/musical source, an artist or expert interview or a statement about current events. 

In the section “Workshop-CH” we publish selected contributions containing up to 10‘000 char. (incl. spaces and footnotes), posters or other digital formats, which showcase current approaches and questions emerging at Swiss research institutions. This final section is not limited by the theme of the issue. 

Fully edited article proposals in German, Italian, French, Romansh or English are to be submitted via the website https://bop.unibe.ch/SJM by latest 15 February 2025. Notification of acceptance will be given in March 2025, and the issue will be published in Autumn 2025.

The Swiss Journal of Musicology is an open access publication platform that aims to transmit current work in international and Swiss musicological research to readers and researchers worldwide. In addition to all traditional areas of historical musicology, contributions from the fields of ethnomusicology, music education, music performance, anthropology, music theory, and artistic research are welcome. The journal invites interdisciplinary proposals, as well as musically relevant research from other fields including collaborations and perspectives that bridge several disciplines. Publication formats range from traditional articles to interviews or podcasts.