History
A peer reviewed and referred journal, European
Meetings in Ethnomusicology was initially - from its release in 1994
until the 2000 issue - called "East European Meetings in
Ethnomusicology". This is the reason EEME and EME appear sometimes, in
some publications, interchangeably. However, starting from the 8th
volume (2001), the journal's title changed in favor of European Meetings
in Ethnomusicology.
For volumes 1-7 the ISSN was 1221-9711, and from
volume 8 on it is 1582-5841.
Since the Romanian Society for Ethnomusicology
fulfilled all formal requirements and became a legal organization, EME
has started showing on the front-page top that it is backed by and
belongs to this professional association. In 1999, the Romanian Society
for Ethnomusicology became affiliated with the International Council for
Traditional Music and took upon itself the responsibility of functioning
also as National Committee of the ICTM. Since then, the yearbook's first
page has also displayed this fact.
This publication was initially 'East European…' -
because we said that we should reckon the status of provinciality,
typically marked by hindering intellectual difference, of ex-communist
countries, and from there on to try to construct something that is
competitive and valid for an international dialogue. Because of the
difficulty of launching a new professional institution I did not spread
the news about an international journal from the very beginning, thus
the first volume contained Romanian authors only (their materials being
translated into English). After the first volume appeared, it became
easier to call for worldwide cooperation. Thus, more and more foreign
contributors, dedicated to folk, ethnic, and traditional musics also
from other countries or geocultures, joined our symbolic, editorial
Meeting. The circle of friends and collaborators continued to grow,
the journal became more and more interesting,
its contents increased in variety and quality, refined its English
proficiency, received recognition and appreciation.
Among other things, why should it be an
'Eastern…' publication, I wondered, as long as there wasn't a 'Western…'
one, too? And as there was no other 'European' (ethnomusicological)
journal we found no professional obstacles in renaming the journal
'European' only. Actually, EEME had always been very European, so that
the shorter name, EME, was completely accurate.
A forum for intellectual exchange, this journal
has legitimately lost any provincial complex, and became fully international.
The ten volumes that came out so far witness for a great wealth of intelligence,
signification and insight invested in and made available here.
The editorial team formed by Philip V. Bohlman
(University of Chicago), Warwick Edwards (University of Glasgow), Craig
Packard (Center for Linguistics in Washington), Margaret Beissinger
(University of Wisconsin), Jeremy Montagu (Oxford University) and Martin
Stokes (University of Chicago) has worked on securing the professional
quality of the journal by involving other peers, by providing materials,
calling for papers, reviewing submitted articles, correcting those papers
originally written in languages other then English.