New Critical Perspectives on the Beatles

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxv

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2. Introduction: Making It New with the Beatles

   • Kenneth Womack

   Pages 1-10

3. The Beatles in/as History

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 11-11

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   2. Getting Better: The Beatles and the Angry Young Men

      • Matthew Schneider

      Pages 13-30

   3. Mystery Trips, English Gardens, and Songs Your Mother Should Know: The Beatles and British Nostalgia in 1967

      • Kathryn B. Cox

      Pages 31-50

   4. Blackbird Singing: Paul McCartney’s Romance of Racial Harmony and Post-Racial America

      • Katie Kapurch, Jon Marc Smith

      Pages 51-74

4. Artistry and the Beatles

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 75-75

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   2. Beatle Country: A Bluegrass ‘Concept Album’ from 1966

      • Laura Turner

      Pages 77-94

   3. Spatial Counterpoint and the Impossible Experience of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

      • Gabriel Lubell

      Pages 95-118

   4. “Blue Jay Way”: The Imagery of Pure Consciousness in Selected Beatles songs

      • Gayatri Devi

      Pages 119-137

   5. George Harrison and the Influence of American Popular Song

      • David Thurmaier

      Pages 139-155

5. Fandom and the Beatles

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 157-157

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   2. The Beatles Christmas Records… Unwrapped: A Closer Look at the Fan Club Discs

      • Tony Paglia

      Pages 159-177

   3. “She Said She Said”: How Women Have Transformed from Fans to Authors in Beatles History

      • Kit O’Toole

      Pages 179-197

   4. Crying, Waiting, Hoping: The Beatles, Girl Culture, and the Melodramatic Mode

      • Katie Kapurch

      Pages 199-220

   5. Revolution 2.0: Beatles Fan Scholarship in the Digital Age

      • Jeffrey Roessner

      Pages 221-240

6. Teaching and Writing the Beatles

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 241-241

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   2. The Beatles in the Classroom: John, Paul, George, and Ringo Go to College

      • Punch Shaw

      Pages 243-262

   3. The John Lennon Series and “Factional” Narrative Biography

      • Jude Southerland Kessler

      Pages 263-278

7. Back Matter

   Pages 279-285

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The Beatles are probably the most photographed band in history and are the subject of numerous biographical studies, but a surprising dearth of academic scholarship addresses the Fab Four. New Critical Perspectives on the Beatles offers a collection of original, previously unpublished essays that explore 'new' aspects of the Beatles. The interdisciplinary collection situates the band in its historical moment of the 1960s, but argues for artistic innovation and cultural ingenuity that account for the Beatles' lasting popularity today. Along with theoretical approaches that bridge the study of music with perspectives from non-music disciplines, the texts under investigation make this collection 'new' in terms of Beatles' scholarship. Contributors frequently address under-examined Beatles texts or present critical perspectives on familiar works to produce new insight about the Beatles and their multi-generational audiences. 

• The Beatles
• Critical Theory
• Cultural Studies
• the Fab Four
• 1960s
• artistic innovation
• cultural ingenuity

• Wayne D. McMurray School of Humanities &, Monmouth University, West Long Branch, USA

  Kenneth Womack

• Department of English, Texas State University, San Marcos, USA

  Katie Kapurch

Kenneth Womack, Ph.D. is Dean of the Wayne D. McMurray School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Monmouth University, where he also serves as Professor of English. He is the author or editor of numerous books, including Long and Winding Roads: The Evolving Artistry of the Beatles (2007), the Cambridge Companion to the Beatles (2009), and The Beatles Encyclopedia: Everything Fab Four (2014). Womack is also the author of three award-winning novels, including John Doe No. 2 and the Dreamland Motel (2010), The Restaurant at the End of the World (2012), and Playing the Angel (2013). He serves as Editor of Interdisciplinary Literary Studies: A Journal of Criticism and Theory, and as Co-Editor of the English Association's Year's Work in English Studies. 


Katie Kapurch, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of English at Texas State University. She has published essays on popular youth culture in scholarly journals and edited collections. Katie is the author of a forthcoming monograph, Victorian Melodrama in the Twenty-First Century: Jane Eyre, Twilight, and the Mode of Excess in Girl Culture (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). 

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