History and outline of the project

The creation, implementation, and completion of a scholarly project is a time-consuming and long-winding enterprise. As mentioned elsewhere, the project had a substantial funding between 2013 and 2016, this being the period where core project members were able to concentrate primarily on the planned research according to the granted project. As the project, necessarily, was developed out of existing research interests of founding members, it is only logical to include some research activities from years ahead of 2013 on this website, as well as "spin-offs" from the project in the aftermath of the project period.

What would become the core project members, organized a conference in April 2011 – titled Performativity and historiography. However, the first initiative, with the clear ambition of developing and presenting a fully-fledged project to funding bodies, was taken back in 2009.

In 2010 the first application was sent to the Research Council of Norway, presenting a project entitled Art – Culture – Career: A Study of the Professionalization of Theatre, Dance and Music in the decades around 1800. Facing the usual and expected hard competition for funding within the humanities, it was no big surprise that the first application was not met with a grant. However, the project got high marks on nearly every criterion of relevance, and the core project members took on the task of revising the project. This took place in parallell with hosting a Scandinavian conference entitled Kunstfagenes kilder (The Sources for Art Research) in November 2011. The archival situation was a core concern for the project members and this conference was seen as a way of mobilizing an important network around the planned project. At the time when the report from this conference was presented (April 2012) the revised project had been accepted; the pArts project was a reality!

The revised project was entitled Performing arts between dilettantism and professionalism. Music, theatre and dance in the Norwegian public sphere 1770–1850. It was in many ways identical with the first version, although, with some crucial amendments – especially with respect to the research questions and the theoretical foundation. The structure and the composition was unchanged, being comprised of two music projects, two dance projects, and three theatre projects – realized through the efforts of three permanent staff members from two departments at NTNU, three PhD-scholars, and one post.doc. position. Professor in musicology Randi Margrete Selvik was appointed leader of the project.

Site overview

The five conferences listed under the menu item Events represents the most obvious chronology of the project. This chronology is linked to Publications where you will find the publications produced under the auspices of the project (the anthologies) as well as individual publication lists.

On the sub-menues to the present page (About pArts) you will find the full project description, including also original versions of the individual projects. With one exception (the PhD project of Annabella Skagen) the projects of the PhD-scholars and the post.doc. were not personalized at this stage. In this account of the project, however, the eventual owners of these projects are identified as a result of appointments.