U2 Above, Across, and Beyond: Interdisciplinary Assessments

by Scott D. Calhoun (Editor)

Overview

U2’s success and significance are due, in large part, to finding inventive, creative solutions for overcoming obstacles and moving past conventional boundaries. As it has embraced change and transformation over and over again, its fans and critics have come to value and expect this element of U2. These new essays from the disciplines of organizational communication, music theory, literary studies, religion, and cultural studies offer perspectives on several ways U2’s dynamic of change has been a constant theme throughout its career. The eight essays here come from the U2 Conference 2013, which explores the music, work, and influence of U2, furthering the scholarship on U2.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781498501316
Publisher:	Lexington Books
Publication date:	12/28/2015
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	164
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Scott Calhoun directs the U2 Conference, is curator for the U2: Made in Dublin exhibit, and is professor of writing and literature at Cedarville University.

Table of Contents

U2 Above, Across, and Beyond: Interdisciplinary Assessments
Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: U2 TRANS-
Scott Calhoun

1 Collaborative Transactions: Making Sense (Again) for U2’s Achtung Baby
Christopher Wales

2 Transvaluing Adam Clayton: Why the Bass Matters in U2’s Music
Brian F. Wright

3 Translating Genres: U2’s Embrace of Electronic Dance Music in the 1990s
Ed Montano

4 A Transcendent Desire: In Defense of U2’s Irishness
Arlan Elizabeth Hess

5 A Transmedia Storyworld: The Edge Is One, But Not The Same
Fred Johnson

6 Transgressive Theology: The Sacred and the Profane at U2's PopMart
Theodore Louis Trost

7 Transmitting Memories: U2’s Rituals for Creating Communal History
Steve Taylor

8 The Transformative Fan: The Bricolage of U2 Live
Matthew J. Hamilton

About the Contributors

Bibliography

Index

Editorial Reviews

There is ample (and stimulating) intellectual discussion of the Irish band’s ‘proclivity for change’ in a world that doesn’t always welcome it. And each of the eight articles (none longer than thirty pages) makes for an easy-to-digest, hour-long patch of premiere rock and roll reading.

Examiner.com

There is ample (and stimulating) intellectual discussion of the Irish band’s ‘proclivity for change’ in a world that doesn’t always welcome it. And each of the eight articles (none longer than thirty pages) makes for an easy-to-digest, hour-long patch of premiere rock and roll reading.

AXS.com

What to make of U2? Is it possible to seek total global pop domination decades on end, to really believe your work is worthy of it, and to remain somehow soulful, sane, and socially righteous? Definitely maybe. U2 Above, Across, and Beyond: Interdisciplinary Assessments is inspiringly unafraid to bring the question down to the level of U2's often exemplary attentiveness to what William Blake calls the ‘minute particulars.’ There is so much to consider and mull over, especially if one is willing to imagine that U2's dilemmas are a lot like our own—only more so. If the goal, in all of our meaning-making, is soul, then we get to ‘minutely particularize’ our love one decision, one song, and one person at a time through this attentive study.

David Dark

As a band of almost forty years, as activists for world change, and as global pop stars accused of forcing their music on the world for free, U2 avoids easy approaches in the twenty-first century. This excellent collection grapples with the various transformations of U2 from eight unique perspectives; from the recording studio and the sound of Adam Clayton’s bass, to its Irishness, to the religious and communal aspects of their music. This is necessary reading for scholars and fans of U2 alike.

Jason Hanley