Bart van der Steen; Leonor Faber-Jonker, Thierry Verburgh, Universität Leiden

Proposals due: 30.04.2017

During the 20th century, various political, musical and other youth subcultures have emerged worldwide and evolved into globally marketed mainstream phenomena. Subsequently, research on subcultural movements has flourished. However, as spectacular as subcultural histories often are, myth and reality tend to become inextricably linked in retrospectives, both in popular media such as newspapers, photobooks, memoires, as well as in academic research. Even more so, researchers have often contributed to the mythical histories of subcultures, rather than critically engaging with them.

The project aims not so much to critique these myths and narratives, but to reconstruct the process of ‘mythmaking’ as a means to critically engage with the Cultural Memory of youth subcultures. Through critical engagement with (history) writing on subcultures by contemporaries, veterans, popular media and researchers our project aims to uncover (i) what the basic elements of various subcultural histories and myths are; (ii) how these histories develop and possibly become canonized; and finally (iii) who and what is included and excluded in these stories. Read more and source … (Web)