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List of contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introducing A Women’s History of the Beatles
1. “Remember Me:” Stories from Merseyside
2. With the Beatles: A Fan History
3. “Don’t Blame it On Yoko”: Wives and Girlfriends in the Beatles Fairy Tale
4. “Free as a Bird”: Music-Making and the Liberatory Beatlesque
5. “Think For Yourself”: Entrepreneurs and Intellectuals
Conclusion: Beatles History, Women’s Lives
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Christine Feldman-Barrett is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science at Griffith University, Australia, and is a member of the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research. She is the author of A Women's History of the Beatles (Bloomsbury, 2021) and 'We are the Mods': A Transnational History of a Youth Subculture (2009), and the editor of Lost Histories of Youth Culture (2015). She has published on topics of youth culture history in various collected volumes and in the Journal of Youth Studies, Space and Culture, Popular Music and Society, and Feminist Media Studies.
Summary
Winner of the 2022 Open Publication Prize by the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM-ANZ)
A Women’s History of the Beatles is the first book to offer a detailed presentation of the band’s social and cultural impact as understood through the experiences and lives of women. Drawing on a mix of interviews, archival research, textual analysis, and autoethnography, this scholarly work depicts how the Beatles have profoundly shaped and enriched the lives of women, while also reexamining key, influential female figures within the group’s history.
Organized topically based on key themes important to the Beatles story, each chapter uncovers the varied and multifaceted relationships women have had with the band, whether face-to-face and intimately or parasocially through mediated, popular culture. Set within a socio-historical context that charts changing gender norms since the early 1960s, these narratives consider how the Beatles have affected women’s lives across three generations. Providing a fresh perspective of a well-known tale, this is a cultural history that moves far beyond the screams of Beatlemania to offer a more comprehensive understanding of what the now iconic band has meant to women over the course of six decades.
Foreword
The only academic book to discuss the Beatles and their social and cultural impact as understood through the experiences and lives of women
Additional text
From fans to female Beatles-inspired bands, we see the powerful exchange of energy between the Beatles and the women who engaged with them internationally. Original interviews are interleaved with significant moments in the Beatles’ history, giving a unique perspective into the way the band ‘worked’ as cultural figureheads.
