CFP: Myth in Literature and Music 

University of Angers, France, 30 June – 3 July 2027 

The Interdisciplinary Center for Research on Heritage in Arts and Languages (CIRPaLL) at the University of Angers is proud to host the 15th Conference of the International Association for Word and Music Studies (WMA) on Myth in Literature and Music from 30 June to 3 July 2027 at the Maison de la Recherche Germaine Tillion in Angers, France. 

While myths have been studied across numerous branches of the humanities and social sciences, studying myths in literature and music offers an opportunity to explore how these forms of expression have shaped one another through processes of transmission, transformation, and reinterpretation across cultures and historical periods. The ancient Greek term mŷthos (μῦθος) can translate into English as “utterance, speech, discourse, tale, narrative, fiction, legend” (Merriam-Webster), which opens a wealth of possibilities for defining what “myth” means today. 

Often situated in remote and indeterminate temporal and spatial frameworks, myths exist through multiple versions and interpretations, allowing them considerable formal, aesthetic, and hermeneutic plasticity. As such, they are not confined to literature. Tosca A.C. Lynch and Eleonora Rocconi, in their introduction to A Companion to Ancient Greek and Roman Music, emphasize the relation between myth and music, writing, “In Graeco-Roman antiquity, performing arts were grouped under a single and inclusive term: the Greek word mousikē, and its Latin calque ars musica. These terms allude to a much broader notion than their modern counterparts: they embrace many artistic activities (song, dance, poetry, instrumental accompaniments, or solos) and brought them all within the Muses’ domain.” Rather than functioning solely as narrative content accompanied by musical expression, myth and music have historically interacted as mutually constitutive forms of cultural memory and artistic creation, as well as serving as a basis for allegorization, which allows for comment on contemporary events or humans relations. As fundamental forms of cultural expression, in no way limited to the Graeco-Roman world, possessing both an immediate sense of wonder and remarkable poetic power, myths reveal the creative imagination of human societies and open pathways into mystery and the sacred. 

This conference seeks to explore myth as a space where narrative, sound, memory, and the sacred intersect. By examining the interactions between words and music, we would like to understand how mythic forms are transmitted, transformed, and continually renewed across artistic and cultural contexts. Therefore, we invite contributions engaging with the following questions and themes, while remaining open to other approaches that explore the intersections between word, music, and myth: 

1. Myth as structure: between narrative, symbol, and form 

• How do mythic modes of thought intersect with literary and musical structures? 
• How do words and music participate in the creation of symbolic systems that resemble mythic thinking? 
• How do patterns of repetition and transformation in literary and musical forms relate to mythic structures? 
• Can music embody forms of mythical thought that exceed verbal narrative? 

2. Myth as creation: between inheritance and invention 

• How do artistic practices transform existing myths and generate new mythologies? 
• How do musical adaptations reshape myths across historical periods and cultural contexts? What is preserved, omitted, fragmented, or reinvented when myths move from literary sources into musical works? 
• When does the reinterpretation of myth become an act of new mythmaking? 
• How do modern artists use myth to explore questions of identity, memory, conflict, and human experience? 

3. Myth as transmission: between memory, performance, and the sacred 

• How do myths survive, evolve, and acquire meaning through acts of performance? 
• How do works of literature and music preserve, reinvent, or contest inherited cultural narratives and/or relationships with the sacred? 
• How do artistic works create new forms of the sacred or challenge inherited conceptions of transcendence? 
• How do performances transform myths from inherited narratives into lived cultural experiences? 

4. Myth as cultural power: between belief, identity, and imagination 

• How do myths acquire authority and continue to shape individual and collective understandings of the world? 
• How do myths function between belief and fiction, the sacred and the secular? 
• How do artistic practices contribute to the formation of modern myths, including myths surrounding artists, works, and cultural movements? 
• How might concepts such as intermediality, performance, voice, and embodiment reshape our understanding of myth? 

Presenters may choose to deliver either a thirty-minute paper or participate in a poster session, with posters being available for consultation throughout the conference. Doctoral research and other research-in-progress may be well-suited for the poster session as there is no requirement that the posters match the conference theme. Please submit abstracts of up to 250 words by 15 January 2027, to wma2027angers@gmail.com. Abstracts will be anonymized before consideration by the program committee, and presenters will be notified of their acceptance by 1 February 2027. 

Program committee: 

Karla Cotteau (University of Angers, France) 

Céline Cregut (Independent Researcher/Forellis Lab, University of Poitiers, France) 

Gillian Dooley (Flinders University, Australia) 

Malgorzata Gamrat (John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland) 

Thomas Gurke (University of Minnesota, USA) 

Robert Samuels (The Open University, UK)