Reading the Beatles: Cultural Studies, Literary Criticism, and the Fab Four

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