Music Panel (Nils Petersen)

Musical Disruption and/or Reconciliation?

Is music able to contribute meaningfully to necessary disruptions in our modern societies? And, conversely, can music contribute to similarly necessary societal reconciliations?

Historically, music’s substantial role in situations of societal upheavals – we might think here of Luther’s Reformation and the reformations of the sixteenth century that followed, or music’s place in the dreams and struggles for freedom in black cultures and movements in North America during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries – are well-known. In the summer of 2025, as this call for paper is being written, music festival performances have been disruptively involved in the Israel-Palestine conflict in (at least) both the UK and Denmark. To what extent are such involvements helpful in bringing new prospects and hope to the world? Do they reinforce already existing tensions and splits, or do they bring solidarity and new strength? Can we – altogether – conceive of musical performativity that may cut across present (political) tensions and disagreements, generating new perspectives of highly needed reconciliation? Is it possible to use music’s historical involvements and functions in religion and society to bring about new understandings of musical potentiality or do we need a completely new musical imagination in order to musically fill in the theological space that Andrew Hass, Laurens ten Kate, and Martin Martinson have recently named the music of theology, based ultimately on concrete musical experience, not least of musical moments of silence?

Proposals addressing these or other similar questions, based on theoretical discussions or on concrete musical experiences and/or examples, are welcomed for twenty-minute presentations.    

Abstracts of no more than 250 words can be sent to Nils Petersen (University of Copenhagen) at nhp@teol.ku.dk no later than 31st January, 2026.