What do Francis Fukuyama’s 1989 essay declaring “The End of History” and the 1990 Jesus Jones song celebrating “Right Here, Right Now” have in common?
In the hands of critic, scholar, and poet Joshua Clover, they are the starting place for a sweeping exploration of the relationship between pop music and its social context.
Clover will be a featured speaker for an upcoming events at the Wisconsin Book Festival:
“1989 and After: Teenpop and the Pax Americana” - Thursday, September 30th at 5:30 p.m. in Promenade Hall at the Overture Center.
Clover will also read his poetry on Friday, October 1st in an event titled, “Poems for a Dying Empire,” - 7:30 p.m. at Project Lodge on East Johnson Street.
Clover is a widely published critic and journalist, a frequent contributor to The New York Times, and the poetry editor for the Village Voice Literary Supplement. As Jane Dark, he also wrote a regular column for Spin magazine. He is an Associate Professor of Poetry and Poetics at the University of California Davis and a current fellow at Cornell University’s Society for the Humanities.
Clover opens 1989: Bob Dylan Didn’t Have This to Sing About (University of California Press, 2009) with the cheeky declaration: “This is not a history book.”
Indeed, it is much more than that.
The book moves between artists and genres as disparate as Public Enemy, N.W.A., Dr. Dre, De La Soul, The KLF, Nine Inch Nails, Nirvana, U2, Jesus Jones, the Scorpions, George Michael, Madonna, and Roxette. As one reviewer notes, “Clover is a gifted music writer, and his descriptions are vivid, surprising and politically sharp without ever being moralistic.”
But in many ways Clover’s most impressive accomplishment is his ability to connect pop music – a genre rarely associated with historicity – with such historical events as the fall of the Berlin Wall, the emergence of the United States as an uncontested super power, and the rise of MTV.
Clover's visit is made possible by support from the UW-Madison Center for the Humanities