Seventies

Shelton Waldrep is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Southern Maine. He is co-author of Insidethe Mouse (1995).

• Introducing the Seventies; Re/Defining the Seventies; 1: Setting up the Seventies; 2: The Wayne's Worlding of America; 3: Jonestown; Identifying Genres; 4: Identity, Value, and the Work of Genre; 5: Trudging through the Glitter Trenches; Fashioning the Body; 6: These Boots Were Made for Walkin'; 7: State of Grace; Queering the Seventies; 8: Domesticating the Enemy; 9: The Way We Were; 10: The Returns of Cleopatra Jones; 11: How to Do Things with Sound; Talking Music; 12: The Dancing Machine; 13: Twenty Years after Tonight; 14: Self Portrait No. 25

"The Seventies offers fascinating insight into the significance of a truly weird era using the critical tools of late-'90s cultural theory. But fear not-this is academic in scope, but far from stodgy in execution. With essays taking on the Black Panthers, glam rock, porno chic, suburbia, Jonestown, blaxploitation flicks, '70s body types and more, these scholars boldly straddle the highs and lows of American culture, unafraid to wallow in a little "trash." Refreshingly, The Seventies steers clear of the shallow waters typically traveled by most purveyors of retro-hell, allowing Eldridge Cleaver, David Cassidy and Patty Hearst to bump booties with Karl Marx, Jacques Lacan and Gilles Deleuze." -- Tucson Weekly"If examinations of the "subversive, democratizing" effects of polyester leisure suits, the "trisexual self-reflexivity" of glam rockers The New York Dolls, or the "queer heroine" status of black action queen Cleopatra Jones strike you as intriguingly offbeat, this collection is for you." -- Tucson Weekly"...daring..." -- Cultural Polemics"Waldrep has collected 14 essays that aim to contest the romanticizing impulse by exploring the contemporary political and cultural meaning in such icongraphic cultural and artistic artifacts as the rock band New York Dolls, the TV show Bewitched, the movie Shaft and disco music. . . . illuminating essays show that the decade was rich with cultural meaning." -- Publisher's Weekly, November 15, 1999"The Seventies offers fascinating insight into the significance of a truly weird era using the critical tools of late-'90s cultural theory. But fear not-this is academic in scope, but far from stodgy in execution. With essays taking on the Black Panthers, glam rock, porno chic, suburbia, Jonestown, blaxploitation flicks, '70s body types and more, these scholars boldly straddle the highs and lows of American culture, unafraid to wallow in a little "trash." Refreshingly, The Seventies steers clear of the shallow waters typically traveled by most purveyors of retro-hell, allowing Eldridge Cleaver, David Cassidy and Patty Hearst to bump booties with Karl Marx, Jacques Lacan and Gilles Deleuze." -- Tucson Weekly"The strongest essays... combine a close attention to specific textual detail with a broad sense of cultural signifigance and a willingness to scrap vague generalizations about "the seventies" for more incisive cultural critcism. These essays manage to avoid the banality of nostalgic fascination.." Daniel Wickberg, University of Texas."