Queering the textures of rock and roll history
I also challenge the dominant historical argument of canonical rock histories that rock music's corporate expansion fundamentally tainted the rock's aesthetic quality and social importance during periods when the commercial and creative influence of queer and/or female performers and audiences gained centrality. Rock has maintained its vitality as more diverse performers and sensibilities have informed its cultural scope. My study describes the contributions of several queer performers to rock era music and illustrates how they have resisted sexual and gender invisibility through discernible strategies signifying sexual and/or gender differences. I employ gay and lesbian studies, queer theory, Christopher Nealon's theory of pre-Stonewall gay and lesbian culture and Marlon Ross' notion of the gay and lesbian crossover dynamic to trace the complex relationships between queer strategies of negotiation and the development of self-consciously queer identified community based in post-WWII era social and political movements. Overall, this dissertation uses an interdisciplinary approach, including an analysis of canonical rock histories, supplemental histories of American popular music, queer social histories and popular press materials to address historic absences
Thesis, Dissertation, English, [2005]
[University of Maryland, College Park], [2005]