colin_cox's review against another edition
5.0
Philip Auslander's Performing Glam Rock is a smart, insightful, and entertaining exploration of glam rock's history, specifically the way luminaries like Marc Bolan, David Bowie, and Suzi Quatro perform gender. In the introduction to this volume, Auslander writes, "I am interested primarily in finding ways of discussing what popular musicians do as performers—the meanings they create through their performances and the means they use to create them" (2). Significantly, Auslander distinguishes between doing and being, thus disrupting essentialist arguments regarding gender, sexuality, and the reception of both.
Auslander borrows heavily from the queer theory canon, and for anyone interested in scholarship that applies critical theory to popular culture (that is to say, in a patient, elongated way, unlike, for example, figures like Slavoj Žižek who use popular media in fitful and sporadic ways), consider reading Performing Glam Rock.
Auslander borrows heavily from the queer theory canon, and for anyone interested in scholarship that applies critical theory to popular culture (that is to say, in a patient, elongated way, unlike, for example, figures like Slavoj Žižek who use popular media in fitful and sporadic ways), consider reading Performing Glam Rock.
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