Popular Music Studies in French Universities

Since the turn of the century, the study of popular music has become one of the hottest topics in French Universities. Of the 71 existing institutions, nearly all of them have one or another official expert on that question. But between the study of a national or an international heritage, between scientific disciplines and humanities, researches devoted to popular music seems to be as perennial as fragmented. My paper will aim to present the evolution of recruitment in this area. Which disciplines were the most active in those recruitments and, beyond these raw numbers, what does it mean ? Why is the French academic situation so different to that of Italy for example ? What are the challenges of this academisation ? Which topics are taught under this heading ?
I’d like to show that next to the objective reasons of this disciplinary interest, there are also various institutional issues that seems to correspond exactly to the assumptions of Bruno Latour (La science en action, 1989) and Edward Slowik (Structure of Musical Revolutions, 2007).