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Theodore Gracyk - I Wanna Be Me, Häftad

Häftad, Engelska, 2001

I Wanna Be Me

Rock Music and the Politics of Identity

Av Theodore Gracyk

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Beskrivning
As someone who feels the emotional power of rock and who writes about it as an art form, Theodore Gracyk has been praised for launching "plainspoken arguments destined to change the future of rock and roll," (Publishers Weekly). In I Wanna Be Me, his second book about the music he cares so much about, Gracyk grapples with the ways that rock shapes-limits and expands-our notions of who we can be in the world. Gracyk sees rock as a mass art, open-ended and open to diverse (but not unlimited) interpretations. Recordings reach millions, drawing people together in communities of listeners who respond viscerally to its sound and intellectually to its messages. As an art form that proclaims its emotional authenticity and resistance to convention, rock music constitutes part of the cultural apparatus from which individuals mold personal and political identities. Going to the heart of this relationship between the music's role in its performers' and fans' self-construction, Gracyk probes questions of gender and appropriation. How can a feminist be a Stones fan or a straight man enjoy the Indigo Girls?Does borrowing music that carries a "racial identity" always add up to exploitation, a charge leveled at Paul Simon's Graceland? Ranging through forty years of rock history and offering a trove of anecdotes and examples, I Wanna Be Me, like Gracyk's earlier book, "should be cherished, and read, by rockers everywhere" (Salon).
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Theodore Gracyk is Professor of Philosophy at Minnesota State University, Moorhead, and the author of Rhythm and Noise: An Aesthetics of Rock.

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"I Wanna Be Me is a fine book that grapples with a number of contemporary debates about the cultural significance of rock music, as well as broader issues of interpretation of texts and artworks. It challenges some of the influential but extreme views that have dominated discussions of political identity in connection with art. Not everyone will agree with Gracyk at every stage. He is more comfortable with the mass art character of rock than are many culture critics. I applaud the book for taking strong, but considered stances on issues of interest within a number of fields." -Kathleen Higgins, Professor ofPhilosophy, The University of Texas at Austin, and author of The Music of Our Lives "With his knowledgeable and well-presented arguments, he challenges readers to reconsider the stereotypes that many modern titans of cultural studies have slapped on rock music... To its great credit, this book also convincingly counters the charges of Timothy Taylor (among others) that Paul Simon's use of South African music and musicians in creating his lauded Graceland is blatant neocolonialist cultural exploitation... This book belongs on the shelf of almost every academic library and will also be an outstanding asset to either popular music or cultural studies collections." -Library Journal "Theodore Gracyk brilliantly examines Rock as mass art and how it affects us by helping to mold our personal identities... [a]n excellent discourse on the subject. It is essential for anyone who cares about what they take in and what they take to heart as their own. A thoughtful and thought provoking read which is refreshing in the face of others on the subject which concentrate on the negative connotations of the music." -Rapport

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