Thursday, October 18, 2012

The Performance Identities of Lady Gaga


Gray, Richard J., II, ed. The Performance Identities of Lady Gaga: Critical Essays. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2012.

Call No.: 780.92 L128g

Publisher's Description: Three years after entering the pop music scene, Lady Gaga became the most well-known pop star in the world. These thirteen critical essays explore Lady Gaga’s body of work through the interdisciplinary filter of performance identity and cover topics such as gender and sexuality, body commodification, visual body rhetoric, drag performance, homosexuality and heteronormativity, Surrealism and the theatre of cruelty, the carnivalesque, monstrosity, imitation and parody, human rights, and racial politics. Of particular interest is the way that Lady Gaga’s œuvre, however popular, strange, raw or controversial, enters into the larger sociopolitical discourse, challenging the status quo and altering our perceptions of reality.

Publisher's Book Page: http://www.mcfarlandbooks.com/book-2.php?id=978-0-7864-6830-0

About the Editor: Richard J. Gray II is a former Carson-Newman professor. He now teaches at Denison University in Ohio.