The Midwest Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology (MIDSEM) is pleased to announce the call for papers for the chapter’s annual meeting on Friday-Saturday, April 11-12, 2025. The conference will be hosted by Northern Illinois University as a fully in-person event.

The opening session of MIDSEM will be a joint event with the 2025 Teaching World Music Symposium on Friday April 11, 2025 at 9 a.m. and conclude at 12 p.m. on Saturday, April 12. Registration fees will be $20 ($10 for students). This fee covers coffee/tea breaks on Friday and Saturday, Friday lunch, and the concert performance on Friday. Details of the registration will include more information about hotels, transportation, parking, payment methods, etc.

Call for Papers

The Program Committee invites proposals for individual papers (20 minutes in length with 10 minutes allotted for questions afterwards), panel sessions of three or four papers on related themes (15 minutes per paper), or roundtable discussions, all on ethnomusicological topics.

• Individual papers: please submit by email a title and abstract of 250 words or less (in a single Word or PDF attachment). Please do not include the name or affiliation of the presenter in the attachment. Abstracts should demonstrate a clear statement of the topic, coherent argument, knowledge of previous research, and a statement of the implications for ethnomusicology.
• Panel session on a single topic: please submit by email from a single sender all the abstracts for the session (individually titled, 250 words or less per abstract, no names or affiliations, Word or PDF attachment).
• Roundtable discussions: please submit by email (in a single Word or PDF attachment) a title for the session and an abstract of 250 words or less (no names or affiliations).

For all submissions, please include in the body of the email only the name(s) of the presenter(s), along with institutional affiliation(s), if applicable. 

Submission deadline: Feb. 28, 2025, 11:59 p.m. CT

Proposals and inquiries should be sent to MIDSEM Program Committee, Jui-Ching Wang, jcwang@niu.edu and Nan Yamprai at jyamprai@niu.edu.

The decisions of paper acceptance will be announced by March 15, 2025.