Popular Music and Public Diplomacy

Abstract

This book results from a larger research project between TU Dortmund University and the Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg which started with an international conference on "Popular Music and Public Diplomacy" in 2015.We would like to thank institutions and people who made this project possible. The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), the US Consulate in Düsseldorf, the TU Dortmund Society of Friends, and Oxford Music & Letters provided grants that enabled us to finance the initial conference. We would also like to express our gratitude to our colleagues at the English and music departments of TU Dortmund University and the music department of the University of Oldenburg. Walter Grünzweig and Holger Noltze supported the initial conference. Our Conference Advisory Board, consisting of

Evolving Strategies at Reconciliation: Inter-Korean Sports and Music Diplomacy in Historical Perspective (1985-2017)

“…In place of Ping-Pong diplomacy as a formative event is the initiative of Jazz ambassadors, which began in the mid-1950s at the behest of the US State Department to project an alternative image of the United States as a means of soft power vis-a-vis the Soviet Union. Authors who have tracked this phenomenon include Dunkel and Nitzsche (2019) who demonstrate how jazz diplomacy between the United States and Soviet Union was not simply notable for its coordination but also for its competition among stakeholders (both state and nonstate) to shape the narrative of what precisely the event's significance "emphasizing their own achievements and sidelining the contributions of the other" (17). Likewise, Mikkonen and Suutari (2016) trace how during the Cold War, the artists involved in music and other forms of cultural exchange made use of the exchanges for their own individual purposes at the same time states exploited the arts for political purposes.…”