FLASHPOINTS IN 20TH CENTURY AMERICAN POPULAR MUSIC WITH DR. KEVIN DETTMAR

1/22/08

Rock & roll history is full of "flashpoints," very public moments when the competing claims of rock come to the surface. When Jimi Hendrix plays the "Star Spangled Banner" on his Stratocaster at Woodstock, for example, the passive "hippie" ambience of the festival is shredded by the amplified sounds of the far-off Vietnam War. On January 22, at 10 a.m., Kevin J.H. Dettmar will deliver a presentation focusing on a handful of such flashpoints - Elvis on TV, Madonna's first video, "Like a Virgin", and Kanye West's attempt to reconcile rap's desire for 'bling-bling" with a social/political conscience, in "Diamonds" - to illustrate how popular music has always registered the larger concerns of the republic. The event will be in the Shawnee Community College Educational Center located on the main campus near Ullin.

Kevin J.H. Dettmar holds a PhD in English from UCLA and teaches 20th Century British, Irish, and American literature, and post-WWII popular music at SIU-Carbondale. Among his many publications, Kevin is the author of Is Rock Dead (Routledge, 2005) and is currently editing the Cambridge Companion to Bob Dylan (2008). He has won several National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) awards for research and writing and directed an NEH Summer Seminar for College and University Teachers in 2007. Kevin lectures widely on contemporary popular music and is a frequent contributor to public radio, newspapers, and The Chronicle of Higher Education.

For more information about this Event or to pre-register, contact Tim Frizzell, Educational Center Coordinator at 618-634-3323 or email at timf@shawneecc.edu.