PhD student Mark Porter has collaborated with editor and theologian Pete Ward to put together a special issue of the journal Ecclesial Practices on the theme of congregational music. Mark’s own contribution on ‘The developing field of Christian congregational music studies‘ sets out to narrate and define this emerging area of research with particular reference to the influence of ethnomusicology over the course of the late 20th/early 21st century.
Doctoral candidate Mark Porter has been awarded funding from the City University Graduate School in order to present a paper at the conference of the International Society for Media, Religion and Culture in Canterbury later this year. Mark’s presentation on congregational music and the ‘new cosmopolitanism’ will focus on the application of recent cosmopolitan thought to the understanding of musical dynamics within congregational music.
In addition to Canterbury, Mark is due to present papers at two further conferences this summer. In April he will present a paper at a joint BFE/RMA study day on music, circulation and the public sphere, focussing on the application of aspects of Jürgen Habermas’ thought to contemporary worship music and in July he will present a paper at the annual conference of the BFE at SOAS focussing on the dynamics of alternative musical spaces within the musical life of a congregation.