Political Rock

Political Rock features luminary figures in rock music that have stood out not only for their performances, but also for their politics. The book opens with a comparative, cultural history of artists who have played important roles in social movements. Individual chapters are devoted to The Clash and Fugazi, Billy Bragg, Bob Dylan, Rage Against the Machine, Pearl Jam, Sinead O'Connor, Peter Gabriel, Ani DiFranco, Bruce Cockburn, Steve Earle and Kim Gordon. These artists have been chosen for their status as rock musicians and connections to political moments, movements, and art. The artists and authors show that rock retains a critical strain, continuing a tradition of rock politics that matters to fans, activists, and movements alike.

Political Rock features luminary figures in rock music that have stood out not only for their performances, but also for their politics. The book opens with a comparative, cultural history of artists who have played important roles in social movements. Individual chapters are devoted to The Clash and Fugazi, Billy Bragg, Bob Dylan, Rage Against the Machine, Pearl Jam, Sinead O'Connor, Peter Gabriel, Ani DiFranco, Bruce Cockburn, Steve Earle and Kim Gordon. These artists have been chosen for their status as rock musicians and connections to political moments, movements, and art. The artists and authors show that rock retains a critical strain, continuing a tradition of rock politics that matters to fans, activists, and movements alike.

Punk rock has long been equated with the ever-shifting concepts of dissent, disruption, and counter-cultural activities. As a result, since its 1970s and 1980s incarnations, when bands in Britain—from The Clash and Sex Pistols to Angelic Upstarts, U.K. Subs, and Crass—offered alternative political convictions and subversive lifestyle choices, the media has often deemed punk a threat. Bands like Circle Jerks, Dead Kennedys, Bad Religion, and Millions of Dead Cops followed suit in America, pushing similar boundaries as the music mutated into a harsher “hardcore” style that branched deep into suburban enclaves. Those antagonisms and ideals were, in turn, translated by another wave of bands—from Fugazi to Anti-Flag—whose commitment to community building was as pronounced as their taut, explosive tunes. In The Politics of Punk, David Ensminger probes the conscience of punk by going beyond the lyrics and slogans of the pithy culture war. He paints a broad, nuanced, and well-documented picture of the ongoing activism and outreach inherent in punk. Creating a people’s history of punk’s social, cultural, aesthetic, and political features, the book features original interviews with members of Dead Kennedys, Dead Boys, MDC, Channel 3, Snap-Her, Scream, Minutemen, TSOL, the Avengers, Blowdryers, and many more. Ensminger highlights punk money’s influence on philanthropy and community involvement and paints a contextualized picture of how punk critiqued dominant culture by channeling support and media coverage for a wide array of humanitarian programs for gays and lesbians, the homeless, the disabled, environmental and health research, and other causes.

How the immigration policies and popular culture of the 1980's fused to shape modern views on democracy In the 1980s, amid increasing immigration from Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia, the circle of who was considered American seemed to broaden, reflecting the democratic gains made by racial minorities and women. Although this expanded circle was increasingly visible in the daily lives of Americans through TV shows, films, and popular news media, these gains were circumscribed by the discourse that certain immigrants, for instance single and working mothers, were feared, censured, or welcomed exclusively as laborers. In The Cultural Politics of U.S. Immigration, Leah Perry argues that 1980s immigration discourse in law and popular media was a crucial ingredient in the cohesion of the neoliberal idea of democracy. Blending critical legal analysis with a feminist media studies methodology over a range of sources, including legal documents, congressional debates, and popular media, such as Golden Girls, Who’s the Boss?, Scarface, and Mi Vida Loca, Perry shows how even while “multicultural” immigrants were embraced, they were at the same time disciplined through gendered discourses of respectability. Examining the relationship between law and culture, this book weaves questions of legal status and gender into existing discussions about race and ethnicity to revise our understanding of both neoliberalism and immigration.