PhD Defense Arno van der hoeven: Popular Music Memories.

The musical rebels of the past have become museum pieces. Popular music increasingly finds its way to heritage institutions like museums and archives. This is what Arno van der Hoeven concludes on the basis of his doctoral research.  On 27 November 2014, he will defend his dissertation ‘Popular Music Memories: Places and practices of popular music heritage, memory and cultural identity’ at Erasmus University Rotterdam.

For his doctoral research, Van der Hoeven examined the strong relationship between popular music and memory. Songs often evoke emotions from the past and many people connect music to specific moments in their lives. Heritage institutions therefore increasingly exhibit popular music culture or preserve it for future generations. Examples are the David Bowie exhibition in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the RockArt museum in the Netherlands. This shows that popular music has become a form of cultural heritage. Van der Hoeven’s research is part of the HERA funded project ‘Popular Music Heritage, Cultural Memory and Cultural Identity’ (POPID), which is led by Prof.dr. Susanne Janssen.

Preserving popular music

In his dissertation, Van der Hoeven examines phenomena like nostalgia, music exhibitions and dance parties for older music fans. For his research he interviewed, among others, heritage professionals, DJs, fans and music collectors. In so doing, he not only focused on established cultural institutions, but also the many heritage projects initiated by fans themselves. Throughout the Netherlands, amateur archivists have set up projects to document local music histories in books and archives.

Van der Hoeven explains the meanings and objectives of such projects against the background of the growing diversity in heritage practices. The advent of the internet has made it easier for local communities and fans to present their music heritage. Also, there is a growing attention to everyday life and contemporary culture in heritage institutions. For these institutions, music heritage is an attractive way to expand their audience.

Identity
In his research, Van der Hoeven shows that popular music heritage contributes to identity construction. Popular music is a constant presence in the lives of many people. The music they listened to in their youth remains important in later stages of life. He also finds that music is strongly related to the identity of places. Examples are the connection between beat music and Liverpool, and the way in which the music heritage of the United Kingdom was used during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games to present a national identity. Van der Hoeven concludes that popular music is no longer the preserve of young people. As popular music spans a history of more than fifty years, this is a cultural form that connects generations.

About Arno van der Hoeven
Arno van der Hoeven is a lecturer in the Department of Media & Communication at Erasmus University Rotterdam. He has studied in Nijmegen, Leuven and Antwerp. In 2009, he graduated cum laude in Communication Science (Radboud University Nijmegen) and in 2010 obtained his Master’s degree in Sociology from the University of Antwerp (graduating with great distinction). In September 2010, Arno started working as a PhD candidate and lecturer in the Department of Media & Communication at Erasmus University. In the spring of 2013, he was a visiting researcher at the Institute of Communication Studies in Leeds. Arno is a member of the editorial board of Sociologie Magazine and a board member of the Rotterdam based heritage organization DIG it UP. His main research interests include media studies, cultural identity and cultural memory.

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