RMA Sound on Screen V, and Re/sounding visions: MSMI at 20

Call for Papers

Sound on Screen V

The RMA’s Sound on Screen Study Group is delighted to announce the call for papers for Sound on Screen V, a three-day conference dedicated to exploring the intersection of sound, music, and screen media. We invite scholars and practitioners to submit abstracts for 20-minute individual papers, position papers, or complete three-paper panels that delve into any aspect of sound on screen – with both of these terms considered broadly – emphasizing innovative perspectives and methodologies.

Our call is open to scholars at all stages of their careers, and we particularly welcome proposals from emerging postgraduate researchers or composers, practitioners, and independent researchers. The Study Group champions all forms of research including cross-disciplinary, inter-disciplinary and practice-led. We aim to foster an inclusive and supportive environment for dialogue and collaboration among participants that recognizes the diverse array of perspectives through which sound on screen may be explored.

Proposals

To submit a proposal, please provide an abstract of 250-300 words along with a brief biography of 100 words by the submission deadline of 1 October 2025. Proposals should clearly outline your paper's focus and methodology and must include ‘SoS V proposal’ at the start of all file titles. NB: If you are also submitting a proposal for the MSMI strand, your Sound on Screen proposal must be substantially different.

All submissions should be sent to RMASoundOnScreen@gmail.com.

Successful proposals will be notified by 1 December 2025.

Re/sounding Visions: Music, Sound, and the Moving Image at 20

Twenty years ago, the journal Music, Sound, and the Moving Image was launched to provide a space where scholarly conversations in the field could emerge from “the metaphorical corridors of others’ buildings”. In their inaugural editorial, MSMI’s founding editors Anahid Kassabian and Ian Gardiner welcomed “all kinds of scholarly works on all topics – from foley sound semiotics to videogame soundtrack sales, from silent film theatre organ practices to theorizations of sounding bodies in installation art, from anime sound editing to Nollywood music styles” – inviting media and film scholars, musicologists and music theorists/analysts, sound studies scholars, “and anyone else who wants to enter this compelling conversation” to contribute to MSMI. Upholding that twofold commitment to diversity of topic and intensity of intervention, MSMI’s conversation has since developed into one of the most valued locations of critical thinking about audiovisual media in contemporary academia.

Now, after two decades in which new media forms (and novel forms of older media) have reshaped our notions of the audiovisual once again, and in which the scholarly discourse on music, sound, and the moving image has also developed and expanded at pace – sometimes in signal contributions to Music, Sound, and the Moving Image – MSMI’s present editors invite past editors, editorial board, contributors, and other notable scholars in the field to join us and ask:

• To which important destinations has our field taken us in the past twenty years?

• What have we missed along the way that we should reconsider?

• And where should our conversation be compelled to go next?

Mirroring the format of MSMI’s first issue, we invite proposals for Position Statements and Short Essays – and also, reflecting a successful recent departure in the journal, for Video Essays. All contributions will be treated as work in progress and shared in advance of the symposium with all symposium participants. To foster conversation and the development of new ideas, most of the symposium will be focussed on discussion of the shared position statements, papers, and video essays. The symposium will also include a roundtable of MSMI editors and board members addressing key themes. After the conference, a selection of position statements, articles, and video essays will be selected to appear in a special issue of Music, Sound, and the Moving Image.

Proposals

As always, Music, Sound, and the Moving Image welcomes contributions exploring the broadest interpretation of the journal’s title in relation to the symposium’s key questions. Papers may seek to build upon the existing scholarship on screen music and sound, but also to challenge its theoretical assumptions, and to extend its boundaries to include today’s full variety of moving image media and traditions. Presentations should therefore innovate, appraise, revise, and/or push beyond existing discourse as represented in MSMI and the wider field – and do so in the collegial, engaging, and serious-minded manner for which MSMI has become known.

Contribution proposals and queries should be submitted to msmijournal@gmail.com by 1 October 2025 for:

• Position Statements (1500-2000 words)

• Short Essays (3000-4000 words)

• Video Essays (up to 10-minute ‘position statements’ or 20-minute ‘short essays’)

For each format of proposed presentation, you should submit a 250-300 word abstract including a 3-5 item bibliography and 100-word biography. All proposals must include “MSMI proposal” at the start of all file titles. NB: If you are also submitting a proposal for the Sound on Screen strand, your MSMI proposal must be substantially different.

Successful proposals will be notified by 1 December 2025.

Statements, papers, and video essays must be submitted by 1 July 2026 to allow participants time to review materials in preparation for the symposium. 

Conference Committee

Sound on Screen V

• Matt Lawson

• Nick Reyland (Chair)

• Ian Sapiro

• Liane Silva

Re/sounding Visions

• Neepa Majumdar

• Leo Murray

• Nick Reyland (Chair)

• Ben Winters 

Conference Fees and registration

TBC

Venue and travel information

The conference and symposium will take place in Manchester at the Royal Northern College of Music. In-person attendance is encouraged, though there will also be a hybrid option (pre-recorded video presentations plus online attendance and, where possible, live Q&As).