Reading the Grateful Dead: A Critical Survey

Nicholas G. Meriwether

doi:10.5771/9780810883727

Summary

Since the 1960s, the Grateful Dead have welcomed and participated in academic work on the band, encouraging scrutiny from a wide variety of disciplinary and theoretical perspectives, from anthropology to sociology. Interest in Dead studies is growing across the country and around the world, and UC–Santa Cruz’s Grateful Dead Archive continues to attract a high level of attention.

In Reading the Grateful Dead: A Critical Survey, Nicholas G. Meriwether has assembled essays that examine the development of Grateful Dead studies. This volume features work from three generations of scholars, including a wide variety of perspectives on the band and its cultural significance. From insiders like lyricist John Perry Barlow and longtime band publicist and historian Dennis McNally to well-known Deadhead scholars such as Barry Barnes and Rebecca Adams, the contributors to this volume offer valuable insights into the Grateful Dead phenomenon.

No other Dead book focuses on the growth and development of the discourse, contains such a range of critical approaches, nor features work by luminaries Stan Krippner and Barnes, among others. The four sections of the book describe aspects and approaches to Dead studies, along with overviews of how the discipline evolved and what it comprises today. This collection will appeal to scholars, students, and teachers interested in Dead studies and fans of the band.

Search publication

Bibliographic data

Edition: 1/2012
Copyright Year: 2012
ISBN-Print: 978-0-8108-8371-0
ISBN-Online: 978-0-8108-8372-7
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 322
Product Type: Edited Book

1. Contents No access
2. Halloween Costume Party No access
3. Acknowledgments No access
4. Permissions No access
5. Introduction No access
1. Ch01. The Education of a Deadhead No access
2. Ch02. The Grateful Dead in the Academy No access
3. Ch03. Thinking About the Dead No access
4. Ch04. “The Thousand Stories Have Come ’Round to One” No access
5. Ch05. Mapping the Deadhead Social Science Trip No access
1. Ch06. How the Grateful Dead Learned to Jam No access
2. Ch07. “Terrapin Station,” Postmodernism, and the Infinite No access
3. Ch08. A Super-Metacantric Analysis of “Playing in the Band” No access
4. Ch09. “And Closed My Eyes to See” No access
5. Ch10. The Dead Play Egypt, Thirty Years Later No access
1. Ch11. Crowned Anarchy No access
2. Ch12. The Grateful Dead Religious Experience No access
3. Ch13. Shakedown Street No access
4. Ch14. What Are Deadheads? No access
5. Ch15. Terrapin Station Demographics and “Deadication” No access
6. Ch16. Autobiographical Memories of Grateful Dead Concerts No access
1. Ch17. “And I Done Some Time” No access
2. Ch18. Nomadic Musical Audiences No access
3. Ch19. Deconstructing Deadheads No access
4. Ch20. The Psychedelic Experience, Contemporary Music, and the Grateful Dead No access
5. Ch21. “Bound to Cover Just a Little More Ground” No access
6. Ch22. Jerry Garcia and Leadership Styles in the Grateful Dead Phenomenon No access
1. Ch23. Cold Roses No access
2. Ch24. Tapes and Memories No access
3. Ch25. One Last Wish No access
Index No access Pages 307 - 314
About the Editor No access Pages 315 - 316
About the Contributors No access Pages 317 - 322