Dr. Jonathan Shaw
T/Th 1:30-2:50 p.m.
Punk—as style, genre, attitude—is most frequently recognized as a musical phenomenon, which emerged in the mid-1970s as an anarchic, sometimes satiric, always disruptive force. This course broadens that popular concept, engaging a series of cultural moments—1968-1975 and 1979-1984—that are crucial for our understanding of punk’s appearance and elaboration in the United States. The course will examine a number of artifacts that articulated and incorporated punk’s style and energy: records and reviews, but also prose fiction, film, visual arts, graphic narrative, and theoretical discourse. Authors and artists that will be given significant attention include the Stooges, Lester Bangs, Samuel R. Delany, Patti Smith, Black Flag, Los Bros. Hernandez, Kathy Acker, X, Linda Hutcheon, Greil Marcus, Fredric Jameson, and Raymond Williams.
