It doesn't matter how you remember him - rockabilly rebel, all-American boy, B-movie idol, patriotic GI or Las Vegas superstar. Elvis Presley is the most enduring image in American popular culture. This book aims to explain why. Other authors have explored Elvis's life and music, but this book examines his multifaceted image as the key to understanding the adulation that has survived his death. The author has talked with fans and joined their clubs, studied their creations and made pilgrimages to Graceland, all to explore what these images mean to those who gaze upon them, make them and collect them. In researching ""Elvis Culture"", she discovered that the visual image of Elvis endures because it was so carefully constructed from the start. She looks at how fans collect, arrange and display Elvis paraphernalia, make Elvis artwork, and participate in the annual August rituals of Elvis Week. By engaging in these acts, she explains, they continually reinvent Elvis to mesh with their own personal and social preferences and to keep his memory alive. The study examines Elvis in specific contexts: as a religious icon honoured in household shrines, as a focus of sexual fantasy, for women and men (both straight and gay), as an inspiration for countless impersonators, and as an emblem of whiteness held in disdain by many blacks - despite his having crossed racial lines with his music. It also looks at how Elvis has become a sanitized, legally protected image controlled by Elvis Presley Enterpises, Inc, which bans the sale of black velvet paintings and licences his likeness around the world.

Review

"'Elvis lives, ' and so does popular culture--ever so vibrantly."--Michael Kammen in the Chronicle of Higher Education

"A fascinating account of the re-creation of Elvis, before and after his death, into a multifaceted icon for his thousands of adoring fans. Doss has delved deep into the meaning of Elvis and come up with fresh new insights into American dreams and desires. A great read!"--Elaine Tyler May, author of Homeward Bound

"As fine a study of fandom as any I've seen, Elvis Culture offers a lively account of why and how Elvis is still everywhere--as patron saint and as passion, workingman and wigger, commodity and goof. A thoroughly knowledgeable and deeply sympathetic book."--Eric Lott, author of Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class

"One of the best books on Elvis that I've ever read. A stellar piece of cultural criticism, Elvis Culture is not only a very smart book, it's an exceptionally readable one as well: a difficult feat that Doss pulls off with style and wit."--Gilbert B. Rodman, author of Elvis after Elvis: The Posthumous Career of a Living Legend

"Doss's memorable book never succumbs to either slavish admiration or slapdash censure. It adds to our understanding of how the love we bear our cultural icons is as complex and life enhancing as those icons themselves."--David Sanjek, Director, BMI Archives, and coauthor of American Popular Music Business in the Twentieth Century

"Doss reveals with remarkable clarity the complexities and contradictions of fandom and the strategies through which a wide variety of Americans use the stuff of commercial mass culture to make their lives meaningful. A significant and persuasively argued book."--Barry Shank, author of Dissonant Identities: The Rock 'n''Roll Scene in Austin, Texas

"Doss offers rich insights into the culture and logic of fandom. Asking how fans use the image of Elvis in their own lives, she unearths the contradictory meanings about sex, race, class, and religion that Elvis has come to embody after death."--Lynn Spigel, author of Make Room for TV

An intelligent cultural analysis of one of this century's most revered, reviled, and reviewed fan phenomena.--Publishers Weekly

An exuberantly detailed and illustrated study that succeeds in demonstrating the complexity of Elvis culture and absolutely compels us to take the fundamental question about popular culture (Why Elvis?) to heart.--American Studies

A welcome addition to the growing body of work that explores America's star-saturated culture and its effects. For Doss, Elvis has become an important catalyst for diverse Americans' understandings of themselves, their relationships to others, and their experience of the modern world.--American Quarterly

The book itself is a remarkable Presley artifact.--New York Times Book Review

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

Store Description

Visit Seller's Storefront

Seller's business information

BennettBooksLtd
CA, U.S.A.

Sale & Shipping Terms

Terms of Sale

We guarantee the condition of every book as it's described on the Abebooks web sites. If you're dissatisfied with your purchase (Incorrect Book/Not as Described/Damaged) or if the order hasn't arrived, you're eligible for a refund within 30 days of the estimated delivery date. If you've changed your mind about a book that you've ordered, please use the Ask bookseller a question link to contact us and we'll respond within 2 business days.

Right of withdrawal

If you are a consumer you can withdraw from the contract in accordance with the following. Consumer means any natural person who is acting for purposes which are outside his trade, business, craft or profession.

Information regarding the right of withdrawal

Statutory right to withdraw

You have the right to withdraw from this contract within 14 days without giving any reason.

The withdrawal period will expire after 14 days from the day on which you acquire, or a third party other than the carrier and indicated by you acquires, physical possession of the last good or the last lot or piece.

To exercise the right of withdrawal, electronically fill in and submit a clear statement on our website, under "My Purchases" in "My Account". We will communicate to you an acknowledgement of receipt of such a withdrawal on a durable medium (e.g. by e-mail) without delay.

To meet the withdrawal deadline, it is sufficient for you to send your communication concerning your exercise of the right of withdrawal before the withdrawal period has expired.

Effects of withdrawal

If you withdraw from this contract, we will reimburse to you all payments received from you, including the costs of delivery (except for the supplementary costs arising if you chose a type of delivery other than the least expensive type of standard delivery offered by us).

We may make a deduction from the reimbursement for loss in value of any goods supplied, if the loss is the result of unnecessary handling by you.

We will make the reimbursement without undue delay, and not later than 14 days after the day on which we are informed about your decision to withdraw from this contract.

We will make the reimbursement using the same means of payment as you used for the initial transaction, unless you have expressly agreed otherwise; in any event, you will not incur any fees as a result of such reimbursement.

We may withhold reimbursement until we have received the goods back, or you have supplied evidence of having sent back the goods, whichever is the earliest.

You shall send back the goods or hand them over to BennettBooksLtd, Escondido, California, U.S.A., without undue delay and in any event not later than 14 days from the day on which you communicate your withdrawal from this contract to us. The deadline is met if you send back the goods before the period of 14 days has expired. You will have to bear the direct cost of returning the goods. You are only liable for any diminished value of the goods resulting from the handling other than what is necessary to establish the nature, characteristics and functioning of the goods.

Exceptions to the right of withdrawal

The right of withdrawal does not apply to:

The delivery of newspapers, journals or magazines with the exception of subscription contracts; and
The supply of digital content which is not supplied on a tangible medium (e.g. on a CD or DVD) if you accepted when you placed your order that we could start to deliver it, and that you could not withdraw once delivery had started.

Shipping Terms

Orders ship within 2 business days. Shipping costs are based on books weighing 2.2 LB, or 1 KG. If your book order is heavy or oversized, we may contact you to let you know extra shipping is required.

Shipping rates within U.S.A.

Shipping rates within U.S.A.
Order quantity	7 to 30 business days	3 to 14 business days
First item	� 5.22	� 7.47

Delivery times are set by sellers and vary by carrier and location. Orders passing through Customs may face delays and buyers are responsible for any associated duties or fees. Sellers may contact you regarding additional charges to cover any increased costs to ship your items.