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No Surrender: Bruce Springsteen, Neoliberalism and Rock and Roll’s Melancholic Fantasy of Sovereign Rebellion

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

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:fau.edu/oai:fau.digital.flvc.org:fau_38019
ContributorsGraves, Kaitlin N. (author), Trapani, William (Thesis advisor), Florida Atlantic University (Degree grantor), Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, School of Communication and Multimedia Studies
PublisherFlorida Atlantic University
Source SetsFlorida Atlantic University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation, Text
Format93 p., application/pdf
RightsCopyright © is held by the author, with permission granted to Florida Atlantic University to digitize, archive and distribute this item for non-profit research and educational purposes. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires permission of the copyright holder., http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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