Table of 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

About the Author

At the Pennsylvania State University at Altoona, Kenneth Womack is Interim Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, and Todd F. Davis is Associate Professor of English. Together they authored The Critical Response to John Irving and Formalist Criticism and Reader-Response Theory, and edited Mapping the Ethical Turn: A Reader in Ethics, Culture, and Literary Theory. Davis is also the author of Kurt Vonnegut's Crusade; or, How a Postmodern Harlequin Preached a New Kind of Humanism, also published by SUNY Press.

Reviews

"This book addresses many of the most significant aspects of the Beatles--their music and their social and cultural influence and contexts. It finds a balance between specialist knowledge (i.e., musicology) and more general interest, and it covers the full breadth of the Beatles' output. The Beatles effected a significant and irreversible epoch in popular music, and for this reason deserve a sound academic study of the many aspects of their arrival, their dominance, their challenges, and their legacy. Such a study is provided here in a diverse and inventive collection of engaging essays."