According to the editors, this is the first study of some philosophical aspects that are connected with the rock band The Who (while there already are many books that deal with meaning and criticism in the lyrics and works of other famous pop stars). Naturally, all the authors share a common admiration for the band […]
Cowboy Classics: The Roots of the American Western in the Epic Tradition by Kirsten Day (2016)
Kirsten Day’s title is the latest publication in the series ‘Screening Antiquity’ by Edinburgh University Press, the only series of academic monographs focusing on new research concerning the reception of the ancient world in film and television and the conception of antiquity in popular culture. At first, there would be reservations connecting the book’s title […]
Devil’s Music, Holy Rollers and Hillbillies: How America Gave Birth to Rock and Roll by James A. Cos
What historically led to the rise of American teenage youth culture and paved the way for rock’n’roll is the subject of James Cosby’s latest book. As examined against the subcultural background of post-war America, and the arrival of new musical impulses from African American culture, teenager’s unknown struggles for autonomy in an altogether anxious and […]
Out of the Past: Lacan and Film Noir by Ben Tyrer (2016)
There is little doubt today, that film noir research and the spread and development of psychoanalysis have boosted academic Film Studies to a large extent; for a short period in the early 1970s, the psychoanalytical approach to Film Studies even seemed to be the only method that brought results. For film and psychoanalysis had a […]
Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ‘n’ Roll by Peter Guralnick (2015)
When one of the best music writers around publishes a book on one of the most important producers/talent-scouts/music explorers ever, the result should be nothing but brilliant. And it actually is. Peter Guralnick must not be introduced, he wrote many excellent books on American music and its respective history, rooted and connected to the American […]
Keep Watching the Skies! American Science Fiction Movies of the Fifties by Bill Warren (2016)
The 1950s were a unique time when many aggressors, real and imaginative, seemingly threatened not only the people and the political system of the United States, but Earth itself. One product of these anxieties were science fiction movies that more often than not gave (not so pretty) faces and (not so nice) names to the […]
Hoo-Doo Cowboys and Bronze Buckaroos… by Michael K. Johnson (2014)
The westward expansion in the 18th and 19th century is well documented and was done by (what we believe) an entirely white/Caucasian group of people who took their chances and finally settled the West; if we believe the many tales, novels and most importantly the countless western movies. But actually, there were also some others, […]
Film Noir by Homer B. Pettey and R. Barton Palmer (eds.) (2016)
Recent publications on film noir tell of the lively interest in the style/genre/cycle. And ever since film noir was subject to definition (and analysis) by French critics, the question of what exactly it is, a style, a genre, a cycle, a movement, has not been answered in total. “Film noir,” as reports Homer B. Pettey, […]
Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America by Jesse Jarnow (2016)
Psychedelic drugs, most prominently LSD, can be credited for having changed Americans and American culture forever. Hardly anything else in the last 60 years has had such a strong influence on American culture as a whole, meaning it had the power to influence the arts (in particular, music), politics, spirituality, technology and naturally a high […]