Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 187-192).

This thesis builds from press accounts of Bruce Springsteen’s South by Southwest keynote address, taken by many to be a renewed call to arms of the classic mantras of the rock ethos in the age of a declining recording industry. In tracing the ways the speech circulated I argue that its discourse was rearticulated toward quite different (and concerning) ends. Throughout, I aim to show the apparatuses of power that sustains the rock liberation fantasy. I read the coverage of Springsteen’s address as a therapeutic discourse meant to soothe the anxiety over the closure of agency in the age of neoliberalism. The general problematic for the thesis, then, addresses an anxiety over the collapse of freedom and as such works to offer broad reflections on the nature of radical agency in our increasingly neoliberal present. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2017. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Before the “sick” comedians arrived onto the comedy landscape political and culturally based humor was considered taboo, but the 1950s witnessed a dramatic transformation to the art of stand-up comedy. The young comedians, including Lenny Bruce and Mort Sahl, became critical of American Cold War policies and the McCarthyistic culture that loomed over the nation’s society. The new stand-up comics tapped into a growing subculture of beatniks and the younger generation at large that rebelled against the conservative ideals that dominated the early post-war decade by performing politically and socially laced commentary on stage in venues that these groups frequented. The two comedians that best represent this comedic era are Jewish comics Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce. Their comedy was more politically oriented than the other “sick” comics, and they started an entertainment revolution with their new style. They became legendary by challenging the status quo during a historically conservative time, and inspired numerous comics to take the stage and question basic Cold War assumptions about race, gender, and communism.