Aims of CIM08
CIM08 aims to make a unique, valuable and lasting contribution to academic discourse on musical structure.
Effective
communication among the various sub-, parent und neighbour disciplines of musicology is difficult and unusual, especially when that research crosses
the boundaries between the humanities (Geisteswissenschaften, sciences humaines),
the sciences (Naturwissenschaften, sciences naturelles) and
musical practice.
CIM
addresses this problem by promoting musicological interdisciplinarity.
It aims
- to
support scholars from different musically relevant disciplines to
pool their expertise, combine their methodologies, and to compare and contrast
convergent evidence bearing on specific questions
- to
promote new and promising interdisciplinary interactions, especially
those that bring together humanities, sciences and/or musical
practice
- to
increase individual musicologists' awareness of relevant research
in the other sub-, parent und neighbour disciplines of musicology
- to
generate answers to musical questions through interdisciplinary synergy:
detailed, thorough, creative interaction among relevant disciplines (as
opposed to mere multidisciplinary accumulation of knowledge)
- to
promote forms of musicological interdisciplinarity that might
otherwise be suppressed by bureaucratic hurdles, inflexible research
structures, or the force of habit
- to
address specific problems and prospects of interdisciplinary methodologies
- What
happens when two elements in the following list are combined in one study:
survey methods, controlled experiment, fieldwork, music analysis, analysis
of recordings, analysis of performance data, manuscript editing, biographical
and historical research methods?
- Different
disciplines have different vocabularies and definitions of central words
and concepts. Which terms and definitions should one adopt in an interdisciplinary
study, and why?
- What
can be learned from existing projects in which specific research methods
have been combined?
- What
kinds of conflicts and misunderstandings can occur when scholars with
contrasting academic backgrounds work together? How can such problems
be avoided or resolved?
CIM
also aims to promote the unity and diversity of
the multidisciplinary melting pot known as "musicology". It aims
- to
bring together researchers from diverse musicologically relevant
disciplines
- to promote academic
openness and collegiality
- to promote musicological
diversity by strengthening its minority disciplines
- to globalise
musicology in the sense of a global approach to research that accounts
for all relevant research traditions, large and small, and in all countries:
to respect
national traditions that make musicology more colorful and diverse, but also
to transcend them
In
these ways, CIM aims to promote the efficiency, academic quality and
relevance of musicology:
- to
improve the amount of useful or interesting information that emerges from
musicology relative to the amount of time, effort and money that researchers
invest in generating that information. CIM assumes that if communication among
musicology's subdisciplines improves, the diversity of inputs to the research
process will increase, which in turn will improve the output.
- to focus on
academic quality rather than quantity. CIM's peer-review
processes aim to be a model of good scholarly practice in any discipline
by being
- expert (each reviewer
is an internationally recognized expert in a subdiscipline of musicology)
- interdisciplinary
(each submission is reviewed by representatives of at least two relevant
disciplines)
- objective (reviewers'
ratings alone determine classification into keynotes, talks, posters,
and rejects)
- anonymous (the assignment
of reviewers to submissions is never revealed)
- constructive (all
authors receive helpful suggestions from experts and are asked to act
upon them)
- transparent (all
reviewers' guidelines are published, and all reviewers' comments are passed
anonymously and confidentially to the corresponding authors)
- to address the
implications of musicological research
- to consider the implications
of the research findings for musical practice, musical or other disciplines,
or for society and culture in general
- to improve (or prevent
deterioration of) public funding of musicological research, teaching,
and institutions, by
- improving communication
among musicologists, musicians and society
- modernizing musicology's
image among non-musical academics and the general public
Further background information on CIM