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University of Thessaly
Greece: Pan European conference on Eurovision
The conference, entlitled "Singing Europe: Spectacle and Politics in the Eurovision Song Contest" takes place at the University of Thessaly in Volos, Greece between 29th February and 2nd March 2008. The contest is looked at from the musical, anthropological, sociological, political, sexual, linguistical, technical and economical points of view.
Issues such as the use of the contest by various countries for political reasons, the economy of the event, the politics of language, the rise and fall of Ireland in the contest, 'Swedishness' versus 'Europeaness' in the Melodifestivalen, the 2007 debut of the Czech Republic and whether Eurovision is "kitch or camp" will be discussed during the conference among others.
The key note speakers are: Marc Abélès (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales) , Philip V. Bohlman (The University of Chicago) , Martin Stokes (Oxford, St. John's College). The impressive list of participating speakers spans geographicly from Greece to Serbia, the USA, the UK, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Ireland, Cyprus, Sweden, Germany and Denmark.
Some of the presentations include:
-Dean Vuletic (Department of History, Columbia University, U.S.A.)
A show of non-alignment: Yugoslavia's international relations and the Eurovision Song Contest
-Tony Langlois (Department of Music, University College Cork, Ireland)
The singing tiger: the rise and fall of Eurovision Ireland
- Milija Gluhovic (School of Theatre, Performance and Cultural Policy Studies, University of Warwick, U.K.)
The ethnic drag from the East: performing race, nation, and sexuality in the Eurovision Song Contest
- Ioannis Polychronakis (Department of Musicology, St Hugh's College, University of Oxford, U.K.)
Greece in Eurovision: 'a song for Europe'?
- Vaclav Stetka (Department of Media Studies and Journalism, Masaryk University, the Czech Republic)
Unintended effects of a media event: Czech Republic in its first Eurovision Song Contest
More information as well as the full programme can be found here
Related polls
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- YourOne 2008 - Semi Final 1: Vote for your favourite song
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- Greek selection concluded: did you like the national final?
- Greece decided: do you like Secret combination?
- Greek national final: your favourite?
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OGAE Greece was neither informed nor invited to participate actively in this Congress. It is really a pity because my home-town Larissa is only a few km from that University. Fans are the ones who keep this Contest alive for so many years and they pay a lot of money to follow the event in various difficult-to-reach countries. I wonder who is going to attend this Congress if fans are excluded.
@ Panos S
Do you really think that ''Mathema Solfege'',or ''Stop'' or ''Socrates esi Superstar''or ''Anixi''or even ''Pia Prosefhi'' are bad entries????
On the contrary...i believe that -at least- the above mentioned ones are one of the BEST Greek entries & some of them could have managed to conquer higher positions....if ERT had the same vision & passion as today 
CHEERS
@ vote united kingdom please . . . . thankyou very much
no, you didn't cause any confusion and yeah, I agree with you, the old Greek entries were bad but now we are great 
this great well done to greek university
congratulations to ms C. Baker on her discussion of Croatia at ESC. Well done girl
old 36 ..what would you call Modonna and jennifer lopez then..
Ireland's fall is of course a direct result of the rise. No Irish artist with any ambition wanted follow to be the next Niamh Kavanagh (or Linda Martin, EQ, PH or CMcG!) so by the end of the 1990s Ireland was reduced to sending Mullans and mullets, then the talent show kids and the dreary Dervish. No established Irish artist will touch the ESC now - unless of course it's the kind of artist for whom simply appearing on the eurovision stage would give a huge boost to his career and, in doing so, add to the gaiety of the nation! G'wan you good thing!!!!!!!
ahhh dont say that bout depina lol- shes fantastic!!!! well yes fresh is good but not when fresh is tuneless lol... i agree i hate carola, sweden should put robyn in- i luv her!!!!
very intresting.AND COME ONE GUY 
DESPOINA BANDI SHE AN OLD COW supose that eurovision has to done with young and fresh people (i love Anna Bissi but she was an old cow aswell for the eurovision)and i hope swedes people dont vote for carola is on of the same lol!!!!When i sayed old cow always i mean it for eurovision ok!!!!! dont people be angree with me.
HAHA how interesting! oh vote for uk... watevs ur name is ex-yugo nations only vote for each because of a similar music tradition and they know the singers performing e.g hari mata hari, karolina, tose, zeljko joksimovic- these are all big stars in ex-yugoslavia. if it was a case of simple neighbourly voting why hasnt slovenia recieved any decent votes???
greece u r not crap- but u havnt been that good- considering how much i luv anna vissi "everything" was horrible, argh u r the most annoyin nation lol coz i luv ur music but not always what u put in eurovision, come on guys despina vandi would win for sure
Sonja,
That would be a logical addition to the analysys indeed, the profiles of the Esc fans and common denominators 
@ the Greek friends
I don't think "Vote for the uk" means Greece is rubbish. He means (if i get this right) that Greece made an effort and managed to win in 2005.
On topic now, kudos to the University of Thessaly for the initiative. But I have to say there is a point they missed, and that is the devout fan base of the contest.
Panos S.
Obviously we are not rubbish, we are the only country who has been top-10 every year since 2004 (including a win, and a 3rd place
vote for united kingdom
That was hilarious thanks How about writing a theme subject for the Uk too?
@ vote united kingdom please . . . . thankyou very much
No, we are not rubbish
sound intersting, would love be there ...
bravo for Greece
Interesting, a Greek University studying Eurovsion from the sociological-psychological-political-scientific-cultural-linguistic researches and thesis, hmm, so we are actually fans of a very important event
sounds interesting
It sounds cool!!
Bravo GREECE 
V. interesting & constructive initiative from my FAVOURITE Eurovision country
GO GREECE!
It would be great if Eurovision.tv could stream this. I'm assuming it will all be in English?
Well, that's interesting Not so sure Eurovision is very suitable to academic study though
Although, as I remember, there were some Eurovision-related lectures at University of Helsinki last spring... "Israel in Eurovision" was one, I think.
It's rather fab, really. [u]The Ethnic Drag from the East[/i], I'm well impressed....LOOL...
It's a fun idea.
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I'm wondering what they'll be discussing about the sexual point of view about the contest :-D
'Swedishness' versus 'Europeaness'
What does that mean? They maybe will speak about "I love Europe"
LOOOOOOL, I'm dying!
ESC seen in SCIENTIFIC way - [b]ESCIENCE[/b]
That's what I've always wanted to organize 
I've been persuading all my environment for many years it IS science and serious event
My favorite issues are:
[i][b]"Performing affiliation: on lyrical articulations of 'Swedishness' versus 'Europeaness' in the Swedish national preliminaries of the Eurovision song contest"[/i][/b]
and ABSOLUTE winner:
[i][b]"Linguistic identity construction in the Eurovision song contest"[/i][/b]
It's absolutely hillarious! I wanna attend it
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