Joni Mitchell: New Critical Readings recognizes the importance and innovativeness of the musician and artist Joni Mitchell and the need for a collection that theorizes her work as musician, composer, cultural commentator and antagonist. It showcases pieces by established and early career academics from the fields of popular music and literary studies on subjects such as Mitchell's guitar technique, the politics of aging in her work, and her fractious relationship with feminism. The collection features close readings of specific songs, albums, and performances while also paying keen attention to Mitchell's wider cultural contributions and significance.

Autorentext

Ruth Charnock is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Lincoln, UK. She is the author of Anaïs Nin: Bad Sex, Shame and Contemporary Culture (forthcoming, 2019) and various articles and essays on Joni Mitchell, Marvin Gaye, Anaïs Nin, contemporary American literature, and popular culture.

Inhalt

List of Permissions
Preface
Acknowledgments

Introduction
Ruth Charnock, University of Lincoln, UK

• *Section I. "The breadth of extremities": Voice, Instrument, Feeling
  Chapter 1. "The Hexagram of the Heavens, The Strings of My Guitar": Joni Mitchell's Crip Virtuosity
  Matthew L. Jones, University of Georgia, USA
  Chapter 2. "Oh Borderline": Joni Mitchell's Aging Voice As a Site of Queer Resistance
  Emily Baker, University of Liverpool, UK
  Chapter 3. Both Sides, Now: Voice, Affect, and Thirdness
  Joanne Winning, Birkbeck College, UK
  Chapter 4. "Dreams and False Alarms": Melancholy in the Work of Joni Mitchell
  Anne Hilker, Bard Graduate Center, USA
• *Section II. "The only [black] man in the room"?: Mitchell's Milieu
  Chapter 5. In Search of Lost Chords: Joni Mitchell, The Last Waltz, and the Refuge of the Road
  Gustavus Stadler, Haverford College, USA
  Chapter 6. Tar Baby and the Great White Wonder: Joni Mitchell's Pimp Game
  Eric Lott, Graduate Center of the City University of New York, USA
  Chapter 7. Tangled Up in Blue: The Shadow of Dylan and Stylistic Swerves in Early Seventies Joni Mitchell
  Howard Wilde, University of Hull, UK

• *Section III. "Busy being free": Love, Time, Feminism
  Chapter 8. "Here's a man and a woman sitting on a rock": Joni Mitchell, Margaret Atwood, and Irritable Feminism
  Pamela Thurschwell, Sussex University, UK
  Chapter 9. Hollow: "Cactus Tree" and the Signs of Freedom
  Peter Coviello, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA
  Chapter 10. "The only thing that's never going away": Still Listening to Blue
  Ruth Charnock, University of Lincoln, UK

  List of Contributors
  Index