ABSTRACT
Optimistically speaking, popular music studies can be regarded as being on the verge of institutionalization in Hungary at the time of writing. In the last few years, important steps have been taken towards its autonomy as a disciplinary field, whether in terms of the organizing of the research community, conferences and seminar or lecture series, journal issues and edited volumes, or tertiary-level education. IASPM Hungary and its sister organization, Zenei Hálózatok (Music Networks), existing since 2010, have begun to integrate researchers with various disciplinary and institutional backgrounds, as well as communicating towards a more general, not strictly scholarly public through online media and event series. The group of scholars and the body of associated works have thus also been producing boundary work and contributing towards the representation of popular music studies as a distinct field with an identity-distinct not only from other academic fields but also, for instance, from music journalism. The formation of the twin organisations was preceded by the 2008 Music Networks conference in Budapest (organized by Tamás Tófalvy and Zoltán Kacsuk)—the first popular music studies conference in Hungary-followed by the Media Representation of Music Subcultures (Zenei szubkultúrák médiareprezentációja) in Pécs in 2010 (organized by József Havasréti and Ádám Guld). Both focused on looking at popular music cultures within a media and technological context and presented approaches that were novel in Hungary, but up to date with international directions, and the results of both were published in the form of edited volumes. More recently, two subsequent popular music conferences organized by Ádám Ignácz at the Institute of Musicology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences have brought an (at times still reluctant) musicological focus to the study of Hungarian popular music forms of the past and present. From 2015, the first Hungarian-language popular music journal, Zenei Hálózatok Folyóirat (Music Networks Journal) has also been available as an outlet for new research by Hungarian scholars-in our view, an important step taken toward the autonomy of the field within the country. As regards international representation, in addition to the connection to IASPM on an organizational level, the editors consider the present volume as a next step.
