Radio Ireland. Radio Cleveland.
We’re hitting the airwaves this week to spread the word.
Earlier today, Conference Director Scott Calhoun recorded an interview with MusicSpot to be distributed in Ireland. You might have heard him live “On the QT” today in Dublin, chatting with Q102 FM’s Scott Williams.
And on Thursday, in Cleveland, home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum, he’ll be in the studio with Mary and Todd for WBWC-FM’s U2 Radio Marathon. You can stream the 18-hour marathon with RealPlayer from WBWC-FM’s site.
On the QT with Dublin’s Q102
On Monday, August 31, at 5:45 p.m. Dublin time, I’ll be talking about the U2 conference on Scott Williams’ drivetime chat show , “On the QT.” It airs on Q102 FM.
One of the questions they said they would like to hear about goes like this: “There’s a lot of debate in Ireland about the fact that U2 are beleived to pay their tax out of the country and yet their frontman is so vocal about economic issues … How do people view Bono in the states?”
Well, how do we view Bono in the states on this matter?
News from Dublin, Belfast, and The Ampersand
News coverage is picking up this week and we hope to see even more press as we get closer to U2’s U.S. tour kick-off date on Sept. 12 in Chicago.
Here is the latest from this week (so far):
1. Alison Healy writing in the Irish Times:
Have you ever considered the convergence of spiritual longing and sexual desires in the music of U2? Have you pondered on the imaginative experience that links Yeats’s The Tower and U2’s Lemon ? Or perhaps you are more interested in the representations of laissez faire inherent in U2’s music? If these issues are keeping you awake at night, then help is at hand. Continue.
2. Ireland’s leading music magazine, Hot Press, writes:
Move over James Joyce. It seems Ireland’s hottest intellectual property is a “band of ambitions, paradoxes, ironies and sincerity,” better known to the rest of us as U2. Continue.
3. From the BBC’s Northern Ireland bureau:
When U2 sang “Sunday, Bloody Sunday”, were they paying tribute to one of the blackest days in Northern Ireland’s history, or was Alan Partridge right and Bono was just on about his least favourite day of the week? Well perhaps this question will be one of many answered at what is being billed as the “first academic conference on the world’s biggest band”. Continue.
4. And Brad Frennette writes for “The Ampersand” (”It’s Everything Between Pop & Culture”) in Canada’s National Post:
There’s no denying that U2 remain the world’s biggest band. They are in the midst of a massive tour, with a recent pair of shows in London that drew 170,000 people. And U2’s fans are a passionate lot. Just bring up the album “Pop” in a fan forum and watch the lines drawn and all caps come out. … To further sate the frenzy for information on Bono and company, the world’s first “academic conference on the world’s biggest band” has been announced. Continue.
Keep following the coverage by following the U2 Conference on Twitter and registering for e-mail alerts.
FULL PROGRAM POSTED FOR UPCOMING U2 CONFERENCE
This is the text of our 08.18.09 press release.
FULL PROGRAM POSTED FOR UPCOMING U2 CONFERENCE
Release date: August 18, 2009
U2: The Hype and The Feedback, the first academic conference on the world’s biggest band, has posted a complete program schedule of over 40 presentations on a wide range of topics on the music, work and influence of U2. ( www.u2conference.com/schedule.php )
As U2 take to U.S. stadiums this fall on their 360° tour, a celebration of their big ideas and epic cultural impact will bring together fans from around the world who relate to U2’s plea: “Let me in the sound!” U2: The Hype and The Feedback touches down October 2 - 4, 2009 in Durham, North Carolina, on the campus of North Carolina Central University, — the same weekend as a U2 concert in Raleigh.
“This will be the place to meet and hear people long connected to U2 and to covering their career,” says organizer Scott Calhoun, English professor and a U2 academician. “The whole weekend is for discussing U2, and the 360° tour makes a stop nearby too.”
Speakers to date include Rolling Stone contributing editor (and Ph.D) Anthony DeCurtis, the UK’s Telegraph columnist (and schoolmate of the band members) Neil McCormick, Ugandan AIDS activist Agnes Nyamawaro, who has worked with Bono’s ONE Campaign, and Matt McGee, founder of @U2 (www.atu2.com) and author of U2-A Diary. Attendees will also hear from Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum Curator Jim Henke via video.
An international line-up of paper presenters will talk about topics ranging from “U2 and the Politics of Irony” to “Bono Versus Nick Cave on Jesus” and “U2: An Elevated Brand,” as well as other topics addressing U2’s influence in rock history, the entertainment industry, and on humanitarian and social justice initiatives.
“We know U2’s appeal is without borders and everyone is welcome. Whether you come in tweed or leather, do vinyl or download, you’ll connect with people who want to talk about U2,” Calhoun promises.
Host school North Carolina Central University (NCCU) will kick off its centennial celebration this fall. Rich in history, NCCU is the nation’s first state supported liberal arts college founded for African Americans. The late historian John Hope Franklin once taught at NCCU and jazz great Branford Marsalis is currently an artist-in-residence.
Located in the Research Triangle, between Raleigh and Chapel Hill, Durham is a vibrant city for education, arts and culture, and was recently named by Forbes as the #3 “Best Place for Business” and by U. S. News & World Report as the #5 “Best Places to Live” in the United States.
“Durham has been well-served for a long time by NCCU’s efforts to educate students and the community through the arts and music,” Calhoun said. “In that respect, the institution closely parallels U2’s history which has been to create music that inspires everyone and honors the overlooked, the oppressed and the champions of freedom for all peoples, from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to Central America’s Mothers of the Disappeared, and more recently Nelson Mandela and Aung San Suu Kyi. We’re thrilled we can bring the conference to Durham and be on their campus for the weekend.”
Register for U2: The Hype and the Feedback at www.U2conference.com
Contact: press@U2conference.com
Got A Question for Jim Henke?
We’re preparing for a trip to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum to interview Jim Henke and shoot the video for his conference presentation, which he has titled: “We are meant to be one of the great groups”: How U2 Saved Rock and Roll.
Just wondering if you have a question you’d like to hear him answer. Leave a comment to let us know.
Thanks!
Welcome to Zoo Panels, Y’All
For easier viewing, please download this as a PDF document: Panel Presentations U2 The Hype and The Feedback
BREAKOUT SESSION 1
Saturday, October 3, 2009 // 10:30 - 11:45 AM
1A. Welcome to Zoo Panels Y’All
Nothing Succeeds Like Failure: U2 and the Politics of Irony
Kevin Dettmar, W. M. Keck Professor and Chair, Pomona College
Common Aspirations: Media Theory and U2’s Zoo TV Tour
Corey Palmer, Huntington University
Uncertainty Can Be a Guiding Light: Why and How U2 Made Zooropa
Kevin Jackson, M.A.T. student in English Education, SUNY Cortland
1B. What You Don’t Know You Can Feel Somehow
Grace Makes Beauty…: The Rhetorical Strategies of Powerful Emotions in U2
Prof. Christine Chaney, Chair of English, Seattle Pacific University
The Meme of Surrender: Bono’s Lyrics of Recovery and Revelation
Andrew William Smith, Tennessee Tech University, Editor, Interference.com
U2 and the Poetics of Absence
Dr. Rene Rodriguez-Ramirez, University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedra
1C. Been Around the Back, Been Around the Front: Looking for the Spiritual in U2
Bono Versus Nick Cave on Jesus
Dr. Greg Clarke, The Centre for Public Christianity, Sydney
The Quest for the Musical Jesus: Finding Jesus in the Music of U2
The Rev. Robert Derrenbacker, Jr., Ph.D., Thorneloe University, Sudbury, Ontario
Whither the Spiritual? A Content Analysis of Reviews of No Line on the Horizon in U.S. and European Magazines and Newspapers
John A. Ballard, College of Mount St. Joseph, and Anjelika Gasilina, Wittenberg University
1D. Get On Your Boots
Singing Truth to Power: Bono Meets Bonhoeffer
Dr. Mark Husbands, Leonard and Marjorie Maas Associate Professor of Reformed Theology, Hope College
Music for Marching: Forming an Army Through the Politics of Love
Dr. Darel Paul, Associate Professor of Political Science, Williams College
1E. We Get to Carry Each Other
Organization Presentations TBA
BREAKOUT SESSION 2
Saturday, October 3, 2009 // 2:45 - 4:00 PM
2A. All I Want Is …
With a Red Guitar … on Fire: The Convergence of Spiritual Longing and Sexual Desire in the Music of U2
Christopher West, Fellow, Theology of the Body Institute
‘O Can’t You See What Love Has Done?’ - U2, Paul Ricoeur, and the Hermeneutics of Personhood
Dr. Jeffrey Keuss, Associate Professor of Christian Ministry and Theology, Seattle Pacific University, and Dr. Sara Koenig, Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies at Seattle Pacific University
Not Afraid to Die: The Grave as a Groove
Henry VanderSpek, Youth and Campus Coordinator, World Vision Canada’s Advocacy & Education Department
2B. I Like the Sound of My Own Voice
Boy, (Achtung) Baby, and Bomb: Anti-Language in the Songs of U2
John Hurtgen, Dean, School of Theology, Campbellsville University
Vertigo-Event-Context: The Interpretive Lyric/Music Binary in the U2 Corpus
Grant Horner and Richard Pressley, The Master’s College
All That You Can’t Leave Behind: The Conservative Voice in the Songs of U2
Stephen Catanzarite, Managing Director, Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center
2C. Heaven Knows This Is A Heartland
A Preacher Stealing Hearts at a Traveling Show: Bono and North American Evangelicals
Dr. Paul Rowe, Associate Professor, Political and International Studies, Trinity Western University and Matthew A. Kerr, Associate Pastor, Worship and Small Groups, Faith Baptist Church Huntsville, Ontario
Desire: U2 and the American Dream: The United States as Imagined in Music and Activism
Kristina Shull, Ph.D. Candidate in History, University of California, Irvine
2D. I Heard Opera In My Head
U2: Identities Covered and Revealed
Mark Mandarano, Artistic Director, Sinfonietta of Riverdale; Principal Guest Conductor, Moscow Chamber Orchestra; Adjunct Lecturer, Lehman College-CUNY
Deconstruction by Stratification: Vocal Layering as Commentary, Criticism, and Reinvention in the Music of U2
Christopher Endrinal, Assistant Professor of Music Theory, University of Massachusetts Lowell
U2 and Igor Stravinsky: Textures, Timbres, and the Devil
Dr. Dan Pinkston, Associate Professor of Music Theory and Composition, Simpson University
2E. A River in A Time of Dryness
Water: Hope in the Name of H20
Diane Yoder and Rob Triaglet, The African Well Fund
BREAKOUT SESSION 3
Sunday, October 4, 2009 // 10:30 - 11:45 AM
3A. Live is Where We Live
U2 Live: Where Leitourgia Has No Name
The Rev. Beth Maynard, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary
Sampling and Reframing: The evolving live concert performances of ‘Bullet the Blue Sky’
The Rev. Dr. Steve Taylor, Laidlaw College, New Zealand
3B. Silver and Gold
Botanizing on Asphalt: Representations of Laissez Faire Inherent in U2’s Music
Paul Viotti, Professor of Political Science, California State University, Chico
Pro Bono: Translating and Transforming Africa for the Consumerist West
Bruce Edwards, Professor of English and Africana Studies, Bowling Green State University, Ohio
U2: An Elevated Brand
Michele O’Brien, Cawley Nea\TBWA, Dublin
3C. North and South of the River
Irish Identity and Utopianism in the Music of U2
Ann Morrison Spinney, Assistant Professor, Music Department, Boston College
From ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ to ‘Angel of Harlem’: Irishness, American Blackness, and U2’s Authentic Performativity
Kimberly Mack, UCLA, Ph.D student in English
U2’s ‘Sunday, Bloody Sunday’ as Public Song-Memorial
Brian Johnston, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Communication, University of South Florida
3D. Every Poet Is A Thief
‘The Ground Beneath Her Feet’: U2, Salman Rushdie, and the Political Frontiers of Artistic Collaboration
Jordan A. Berard, Ph.D. Candidate, University of Ottawa
‘O may the moon and the sunlight seem / One inextricable beam:’ The Imaginative Experience in Yeats’ ‘The Tower’ and U2’s ‘Lemon’
Joe Bisz, Professor of English, CUNY Borough of Manhattan Community College
U2 and Bertolt Brecht: The Rock Concert as Political Theatre
Simran Karir, PhD candidate, Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, University of Toronto
BREAKOUT SESSION 4
Sunday, October 4, 2009 // 2:45 - 4:00 PM
4A. Of Science and The Human Heart
Strange Bedfellows: The Influence of U2 in Antiretroviral Drug Funding and Distribution for Sub-Saharan Africa David J. Kroll, Ph.D., Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences, North Carolina Central University, and colleagues
4B. If I Could, I Would
Teaching U2: The Classroom as Gathering Place
Tim Neufeld, faculty in Biblical and Religious Studies, Fresno Pacific University, California, and Jessica Mast, senior student, Fresno Pacific University, California
U2 in the Church - How it is Done in Denmark
Rev. Jens Moesgaard Nielsen, M.Th. and Rev. Joergen Lasgaard, M.Th., The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Denmark
U2 as a Pedagogical Resource: Faith Integration and Social Justice
Brian Porter, Professor of Management, Hope College
4C. But I Can Change the World in Me
When I Look At the World: Viewing the Impact of U2’s Music on Listeners’ Consciousness and Activism Through the Lens of Narrative Inquiry
Rachel Seiler, LMSW, Ph.D. Candidate, California Institute of Integral Studies
I’m Still Waiting: The General Admission Queue and Fan Self-Organizing Culture at U2 Concerts
Dr. Barbara LoMonaco, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Transylvania University, Lexington, Kentucky Sun
Sometimes Melodies Are Not Songs, They’re Ideas: The Creative Life of Bono and Implications for Talent Development
Jeff Danielian, The National Association for Gifted Children
4D. I Saw You In the Curve of the Moon
U2: Fallen Angels
Deane Galbraith, University of Otago, New Zealand
Is this rock and roll?: Sources, Contexts, and Intertexts of U2’s ‘Until the End of the World’
Daniel Kline, University of Alaska Anchorage
4E. We Get to Carry Each Other
Organization Presentations TBA