Paper:  "'Militant Entertainment'?(Sub) Cultural Production of Music, Ephemera and Style as Politics in the Emergent 'Structure of Feeling', 1977-81"

This paper explores the potential of the D-I-Y (sub)cultural production of ‘crisis’ music (sound, lyrics), political ephemera (leaflets, fly-posters, graffitti, fanzines, papers) and sub-cultural style (clothes, badges, look, attitude) as a means of understanding the ‘emergent’ (alternative, oppositional) ‘structure of feeling’ of the late 1970s and early 1980s. It draws upon Raymond Williams’s concepts of ‘structure of feeling’ and ‘practical consciousness’ to highlight the ‘impulse, restraint, and tone’ at the beginning of the present neoliberal era. This paper was supported by a travel grant provided by funds from Wilfrid Laurier University and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council.

Conference URL:  http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/depts/fass/research/subcultures/