Cercle de Recherche…

The Cercle de Recherche Inter­dis­ci­pli­naire sur les Musi­ciennes (Inter­dis­ci­pli­nary Research Group on Female Musi­cians) was laun­ched in 2010 by a net­work of musi­co­lo­gists, socio­lo­gists and his­to­rians with the aim of brin­ging toge­ther, deve­lo­ping and heigh­te­ning the pro­file in France of research acti­vi­ties into female musicians.

…Inter­dis­ci­pli­naire…

The CReIM is a plat­form for inter­dis­ci­pli­nary inter­ac­tion and exchange, not limi­ted to any par­ti­cu­lar his­to­ri­cal per­iod. Its aim is to fos­ter syner­gies and cross-fertilisation bet­ween dif­ferent approaches in musi­co­logy, socio­logy, his­to­ri­cal stu­dies, gen­der stu­dies, archi­val and lite­rary research, etc. This is with a view not only to stu­dying high-profile figures in the his­tory of female musi­cian­ship, but also to wri­ting a social his­tory of more hid­den female musi­cal prac­tices, and to map the various spaces occu­pied by female musi­cians – the focal points, the conquests, and the obs­tacles – or again, to ana­lyse sys­tems of repre­sen­ta­tion, dis­course, mecha­nisms of recep­tion and per­cep­tion, and the role of music in the construc­tion of gen­der and femi­nine identity.

… sur les Musiciennes

The topic “female musi­cians” is unders­tood here in the broad sense of female com­po­sers, per­for­mers, theo­re­ti­cians, musi­co­lo­gists, pro­fes­sio­nal or ama­teur, patrons, or even just lis­te­ners. More gene­rally, the pur­pose is to exa­mine the links, inter­ac­tions and points of ten­sion bet­ween women and musi­cal spheres, or bet­ween music and female spheres.

The CReIM has thus two fun­da­men­tal aspi­ra­tions: to fur­ther inte­grate music within women’s stu­dies and gen­der stu­dies, but also to incor­po­rate women within the his­tory of music and within musi­co­lo­gi­cal studies.