A field that has long abandoned its core studies is now fretting over holding smaller conferences and decolonising itself.
Read this:
On Behalf Of Parncutt, Richard (richard.parncutt@uni-graz.at)
Sent: 09 July 2025 11:02
To: MUSICOLOGY-ALL@JISCMAIL.AC.UK
Subject: [MUSICOLOGY-ALL] Organizing a sustainable, inclusive international conference: The multi-hub option
Dear colleagues,
Allow me to draw your attention to a new article:
Parncutt, R. (2025). The global multi-hub conference: Inclusion, sustainability, and academic politics. Sustainable Futures, 100915.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666188825004800
The idea is to radically change the structure of larger international academic conferences, substantially reducing emissions while at the same time substantially improving inclusion (DEI) and maintaining constant face-to-face contact within hubs. Given the worsening global climate crisis, combined with increasing inequality and awareness of the need to decolonize academic disciplines, there are now strong ethical arguments for reform.
Such a reform would not affect academic quality. If anything, quality will improve if colleagues with more diverse cultural backgrounds are included, and if the conference hubs that are established on different continents have the same status (without a central location or hub hierarchy). As for the “conference experience”, it will inevitably change. In some ways it will be better, in others worse. We need to see the glass as half full and not as half empty.
If anyone is considering a big international conference in the coming few years, please contact me to talk about the possibility of a multi-hub format. I can help with practical issues, on behalf of my university.
https://klimaneutral.uni-graz.at/en/our-research/the-global-multi-hub-academic-conference/
Yours sincerely,
Richard Parncutt
University of Graz, Austria
pictured: Mahler’s friend Guido Adler, father of modern musicology
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