Rock n Roll and Nationalism: A Multinational Perspective

In the mid-twentieth century, pop music joined classical and folk as an important site of the formation and renewal of nationalism. Rock ‘n’ Roll and Nationalism: A Multinational Perspective, deals – in essays on Croatia, Bosnia, England, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Russia, Slovenia, and the United States – with the fascinating interplay between national and nationalistic identities and emotions and the rock music idiom. This scholarly enquiry brings together the talents of observers of popular music, including academic and independent scholars, and rock performers and journalists. Though the authors use many methodologies to get at their subjects, they all include thick description of the cultural systems around which rock in the eight different countries is structured. The author’s insights into the detail and nuance of their topics will lead readers to new understanding of the subject of rock and roll and nationalism, and also provide them with a fruitful jumping off point for thoughtful further research. Most of the papers included in this volume were presented at two extraordinary international conferences, Popular Music and National Culture, held in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in November 2000 and Crossroads in Cultural Studies, held in Tampere, Finland, in June-July 2002.