PUNK! Las Américas Edition
Edited by Olga Rodríguez-Ulloa, Rodrigo Quijano, Shane Greene Series edited by Russ Bestley, Mike Dines, Paula Guerra
Publication date:
11 March 2022Publisher
Intellect BooksDimensions:
244x170mm7x10"
ISBN-13: 9781789384154
What does a hemispheric Americas look like when done through the lens of punk music, visuals and literature? That is the core premise of this book, presented through a collage of analytical, aesthetic and experiential takes on punk across the continent.
This book challenges the dominant vision of punk – particularly its white masculine protagonists and deep Anglocentrism – by analysing punk as a critical lens into the disputed territories of 'America', a term that hides the heterogeneous struggles, global histories, hopes and despairs of late twentieth and early twenty-first century experience. Compiling academic essays and punk paraphernalia (interviews, zines, poetry and visual segments) into a single volume, the book seeks to explore punk life through its multiple registers, through vivid musical dialogues, excessive visual displays and underground literary expression.
The kaleidoscopic accounts include everything from sustained academic inquiry and photo portraits to anarchist manifestos and interview excerpts with notable punk figures. The result is a radically heterogenous mixture that seeks to reposition punk and las Américas as intrinsically bound up in each other’s history: for better and for worse. Out of critical pasts, within an urgent present and toward many different possible futures.
This volume critically refashions punk to suggest it emerges from within the long-term historical experience of las Américas in all their plurality and is useful as a mode of critique towards the hegemonic dimensions of America in its imperial singularity. The book is rooted in a theory of 'radical heterogeneity' and thus represents a collage-like juxtaposition of punk perspectives from across the entire hemisphere and via divergent contributions: academic, experiential and aesthetic.
Readership for this collection will include both academic and general readers.
Primary readership will be academic. It will appeal to researchers, scholars, educators and students in the following fields: American studies, Latin American studies, media and communication, cultural studies, sociology, history, music, ethnomusicology, anthropology, art, literature.
General readership will be among those interested in the following areas - anarchism, music, subculture, literature, independent publishing, photography.
'The book moves beyond the analysis of a single scene, city or nation to consider the ‘radical heterogeneity and simultaneous interconnectedness of the Americas through a series of critical punk lenses’ (16). Contributors explore Spanish-speaking parts of the Americas, native Alaskans, the English-speaking Caribbean and Brazil. The geographical reach is vast and the cultural approaches to punk in these parts of the Americas display both commonalities and unique characteristics and struggles. [...] The chapters include a mix of traditional academic essays, interviews, a manifesto, an excerpt from a novel, photo essays, a blog reproduction and contributions that are more journalistic in form. The inclusion of different types of materials and diverse analytical approaches yields an edited collection with a rich texture. Moreover, the varied approaches to engaging and analysing punk provide a much more interesting opportunity for a reader to consider how punk exists as a blend of music, cultural practice, ethical framework and way of being in the world. [...] The diverse types of contributions to PUNK! Las Américas Edition make for an engaging intellectual experience that mirrors the myriad ways punks materialize a punk life.'