This book brings together contributions that analyse how subcultural myths develop and how they can be studied. Through critical engagement with (history) writing and other sources on subcultures by contemporaries, veterans, popular media and researchers, it aims to establish: how stories and histories of subcultures emerge and become canonized through the process of mythification; which developments and actors are crucial in this process; and finally how researchers like historians, sociologists, and anthropologists should deal with these myths and myth-making processes. By considering these issues and questions in relation to mythmaking, this book provides new insights on how to research the identity, history, and cultural memory of youth subcultures.
1. Introduction: Researching Subcultures, Myth and Memory- Bart van der Steen andThierry P.F. Verburgh.- Part I: Conceptual Clarifications.- 2. Situating 'Subculture': On the Origins and Limits of The term for Understanding Youth Cultures- Andy Bennett.- 3. Myth and Authenticity in Subculture Studies- J. Patrick Williams.- 4. Punk Legends: Cultural Representation and Ostension- Jeffrey Debies-Carl.- 5. 'Bad to the Bone' The Myth and Mystique of the Motorcycle Gang- Bill Osgerby.- 6. 'Two Baltimores' and the Conflicting Representations of Baltimore's Wild Out Wheelie Boyz- Glen Wood.- Part II: Subcultural Myth and Memory.- 7. Remembering Andre 'Angel' Melendez: Rave Subculture's Contested/Conflicted Memory of a Racially Motivated Murder- Yamil Avivi García.- 8. 'From the Dark Past': The Contested Historiography of Violence in Norwegian Black Metal- Ross Hagen.- 9. Between Revolution and the Market: Bob Marley and the Cultural Politicsof the Youth Icon- Jeremy Prestholdt.- Part III: Punk, Personal and Subcultural Memory.- 10. Memories of Being Punk in West Germany: Personal and Shared Recollections in Life Stories- Knud Andresen.- 11. Mapping Subcultures from Scratch: Moving Beyond the Mythology of Dutch Post-Punk- Richard Foster.- 12. Imagining and Performing Marginalization: Hip Hop and the Arab Spring of 2011- Igor Johannsen.- 13. 'Soaking up the Punky-Funky All-Feel of Eastern Kreuzberg': Myth-Making, Preference Construction, and Youth Cultures- Thierry P.F. Verburgh.
