MEMPOP members contributions at the first conference of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music – Central, Eastern and SouthEastern Europe (IASPM CESE) on September 11–12, 2025, at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland.

The International Association for the Study of Popular Music – Central, Eastern and SouthEastern Europe (IASPM CESE) held its first international conference on September 11–12, 2025 at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland. The event, titled The Past, the Present and the Future of Popular Music Research in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe, brought together popular music researchers from across the region and provided a platform for discussing the history, contemporary practices, and future directions of popular music research in Central and Southeastern Europe. The conference was organized by the Executive Committee: Maciej Smółka, Jernej Kaluža, Bojana Radovanović Šuput, and Aleš Opekar.

Contributions from MEMPOP Project Members

Natalija Majsova presented the paper United and Divided by Music: Tradition in Post-Yugoslav States’ Eurovision Performances After the Ethnopop Turn (2005–2024), examining how Eurovision performances from post-Yugoslav states, following the so-called ethno-pop turn, have simultaneously built a shared cultural heritage and reinforced national differences.

Robert Bobnič in his paper Yugowave on YouTube analyzed the phenomenon of the Yugowave aesthetic on YouTube, with a focus on user participation and the creation of digital communities around Yugonostalgia and the ironic appropriation of the region’s tragic recent history.

Jasmina Šepetavc presented Sonic Borders and Affective Cartographies: Constructing the “South” in Post-Yugoslav Slovenian Cinema, analyzing film music and soundscapes through which imaginaries of the “South” and the Balkans have been constructed in Slovenian cinema after independence.

Diana Grgurić, together with Jernej Kaluža, presented Popular Music as Memoryscape: The Legacy of Croatian Singer Oliver Dragojević in Collective Memory, highlighting Oliver Dragojević’s significance as a key figure in Croatian musical culture and his impact on collective memory in the region.

Jernej Kaluža, in his paper Protecting Local Sound in Slovenian Media: The Challenges of Music Quotas in a Small Media Market, analyzed the effects of music quotas on the presence of domestic music in Slovenian media, pointing out the specificity of regulatory challenges for music broadcasting in small semi-peripheral European states.

International Networking and Looking Ahead

The conference directly addressed the problem of the fragmentation of popular music discourse in Central and Southeastern Europe, emphasizing that building lasting connections is crucial for creating a shared research space.

At the IASPM CESE General Assembly, which concluded the conference, it was confirmed that the next conference will take place in Ljubljana – in early 2027 – organized by the MEMPOP project team.