Lexington Books
Pages: 256
•
Trim: 6¼ x 9½
978-1-4985-1447-7 • Hardback • June 2016 • $123.00 • (£95.00)
978-1-4985-1448-4 • eBook • June 2016 • $116.50 • (£90.00)
Rocco J. Gennaro is professor of philosophy at the University of Southern Indiana.
Casey Harison is professor of history at the University of Southern Indiana.
Introduction
by Rocco J. Gennaro and Casey Harison
Part I—“I Can’t Explain”: Mod Culture
Chapter 1. The Who and “My Generation”: Philosophical Recollections of a Former Second Wave Mod
by Catherine Villanueva Gardner
Chapter 2. All Mod Cons: The Who and Rock ‘n’ Roll Authenticity
by Steven D. Williams
Part II—“We’re Not Going to Take It”: Alienation and Angst
Chapter 3. “I’ve Had Enough”: The Who and Social Revolution
by Casey Rentmeester and William Knoblauch
Chapter 4. Who’s That Outside?
by Greg Littmann
Chapter 5. To the Sea and Sand: Quadrophenia – An Interpretation
by Robert McParland
Chapter 6. Fiddling about Becoming a Man
by Christopher Ketcham
Part III—“The Real Me”: Consciousness, Disorders, and Deception
Chapter 7. “See Me, Feel Me, Touch Me” – Know Me: Rationalism vs Empiricism in Tommy
by Russell L. Johnson
Chapter 8. What Does Tommy Feel?: The Aesthetic Experience of a Deaf, Dumb, and Blind Kid
by S. Evan Kreider
Chapter 9. “He Only Comes out When I Drink My Gin”: DID, Personal Identity, and Moral Responsibility
by Rocco J. Gennaro
Chapter 10. Who Can You Trust? The Paradox of Listening to The Who
by Don Fallis
Part IV—“Pure and Easy”: Meher Baba and Spiritualism
Chapter 11. “The Real Me”
by Scott Calef
Chapter 12. Behind Zarathustra’s Eyes: The Bad, Sad Man Meets Nietzsche’s Prophet
by Blake Wilson
Part V—“Long Live Rock”: The Who in Concert
Chapter 13. Theater of Destruction: Chaos, Rage, Frustration, and Anarchy in the Rebellious Music and Ferocious Performances of the Early Who
by Dan Dinello
Chapter 14. “You are Forgiven”: Reflections on Violence, Redemption and The Who
by Casey Harison
Chapter 15. An Analysis of the Who in Concert: 1971-2014
by Peter Smith
Chapter 16. We Could Never Follow What You Did: The Who and the Concert for New York City
by Tom Zlabinger
About the Contributors
The editors Gennaro and Harison…have successfully compiled a selection of texts on a band and their followers who could only exist at that particular time. . . .Here we have a good compilation of texts that will appeal to anybody interested in popular music, British bands of the 1960s and of course The Who.
— Popcultureshelf.com
It isn’t their over-the-top stage moves or musical chops that made The Who the embodiment of their generation—youth of the Sixties. Rather, it was their verbal focus on expressing oneself authentically, the passion of the era. Authenticity was the theme of their hit songs (like “Behind Blue Eyes,” “The Real Me,” “I Can’t Explain,” “See Me, Feel Me,” and “Substitute”), in the title of their 1968 album “The Who Sell Out;” and expressed by Townshend in innumerable interviews. Authenticity, and its barriers, was also central to the works of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and the philosophers most influential to young Brits in the 1960s, the French existentialists, Sartre and Camus. Discussing the philosophical underpinnings and relationships between the work of this popular and influential rock band and a set of great modern philosophers, this long overdue volume provides a deeper understanding of both.
— Deena Weinstein, DePaul University
What a terrific book! Harison and Gennaro have assembled a wide-ranging collection of essays spanning the academic, the intellectual and what is oftentimes just plain fun. Any deep fan of the Who has spent plenty of time reading into the band’s Mod antecedents, the symbolism of violence in the destruction of their instruments on stage, Townshend’s simultaneous striving for the power and permanence of opera while insisting that pop music is ephemeral, and how Meher Baba has lain a continuing religious thread through Townshend’s musical ideas. This book is for that fan, and anyone trying to look for their own philosophical thread running through the songs and career of rock music’s most philosophically adventurous act.
— David Simonelli, Youngstown State University