Reading the Beatles : cultural studies, literary criticism, and the Fab Four

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Bibliographic Information

Reading the Beatles : cultural studies, literary criticism, and the Fab Four

edited by Kenneth Womack and Todd F. Davis

State University of New York Press, c2006

  • : hc
  • : pbk.

Available at  / 4 libraries

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Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. 221-231) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

Despite the enormous amount of writing devoted to the Beatles during the last few decades, the band's abiding intellectual and cultural significance has received scant attention. Using various modes of literary, musicological, and cultural criticism, the essays in Reading the Beatles firmly establish the Beatles as a locus of serious academic and cultural study. Exploring the group's resounding impact on how we think about gender, popular culture, and the formal and poetic qualities of music, the contributors trace not only the literary and musicological qualities of selected Beatles songs but also the development of the Beatles' artistry in their films and the ways in which the band has functioned as a cultural, historical, and economic product. In a poignant afterword, Jane Tompkins offers an autobiographical account of the ways in which the Beatles afforded her with the self-actualizing means to become less alienated from popular culture, gender expectations, and even herself during the early 1960s.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction: “Dear Sir or Madam, Will You Read My Book?” Kenneth Womack and Todd F. Davis Part I “Speaking words of wisdom”: The Beatles’ Poetics 1. “I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together”: Bakhtin and the Beatles Ian Marshall 2. From “Craft” to “Art”: Formal Structure in the Music of the Beatles John Covach 3. “Love, love, love”: Representations of Gender and Sexuality in Selected Songs by the Beatles Sheila Whiteley 4. Painting Their Room in a Colorful Way: The Beatles Exploration of Timbre Walter Everett Part II “A splendid time is guaranteed for all”: Theorizing the Beatles 5. Mythology, Remythology, and Demythology: The Beatles on Film Kenneth Womack and Todd F. Davis 6. Vacio Luminoso: “Tomorrow Never Knows” and the Coherence of the Impossible Russell Reising 7. The Spectacle of Alienation: Death, Loss, and the Crowd in Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band William M. Northcutt 8. We All Want to Change the World: Postmodern Politics and the Beatles’ White Album Jeffrey Roessner Part III “We can work it out”: The Beatles and Culture 9. “The rest of you, if you’ll just rattle your jewelry”: The Beatles and Questions of Mass and High Culture Paul Gleed 10. A Universal Childhood: Tourism, Pilgrimage, and the Beatles Kevin McCarron 11. “Baby, You’re a Rich Man”: The Beatles, Ideology, and the Cultural Moment James M. Decker 12. Spinning the Historical Record: Lennon, McCartney, and Museum Politics John Kimsey Afterword: I Want to Hold Your Hand Jane Tompkins Bibliography List of Contributors Index

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