Call for Chapters

Despite their association with the baby boomer generation, the Beatles have never just been considered a “boomer band.” Subsequent generations all have gravitated to and connected with the Beatles’ enduring music and extraordinary story. Recent studies on fandom and the Beatles have explored why the band continues to attract new generations of fans while first-generation fans continue to follow them (see Kenneth Womack and Kit O’Toole’s Fandom and the Beatles: The Act You’ve Known for All these Years) while other studies have explored the various subcultures that have developed alongside the Beatles’ own story, both during their time as an active band and post-breakup (see Richard Mills’s The Beatles and Fandom: Sex, Death and Progressive Nostalgia).

This will be the first study to explore overtly the relationship of five specific generations to the Beatles -- The Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, and Generation Z. The Silent Generation were in their 20s and 30s when the Beatles released their first records, but little has been written about their engagement with the band. While the boomers came of age during the Beatles’ time as an active band, subsequent generations with limited active memory of the Beatles’ time together grew up in a world shaped in part by the band, a time when the Beatles’ legacy and cultural influence had already begun to influence the generations born after the Fab Four. In short, this collection will be an important study of how five different generations have engaged with one of the most important musical and cultural phenomena of the past sixty years.

We are looking forward to receiving 250-300-word abstracts for 3,000-6,000 word essays (including Bibliography) that document and critically engage with, among other topics, how members of these different generations encountered the Beatles’ music and their story, how their generational outlook impacted their view of the Beatles, how the Beatles shaped their relationship to other music and popular culture, how their engagement with the Beatles impacted intergenerational relationships, and how the Beatles affected their worldview in general. We are looking forward to chapters that not only draw from academic theory on generations and fandom but also chapters that draw from autoethnographic methodologies.

We especially encourage submissions from voices that break through traditional patriarchal constraints. We look forward to reading submissions that emerge from outside traditional male voices and sensibilities, as well as voices from non-binary and non-white perspectives.

We foresee a volume divided into five sections, with each section featuring chapters that address each generational group: Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, and Generation Z. Contributors are invited on any of the following aspects:

● Oral histories of fans’ relationships with the Beatles. ● Analyses of how the five different generations interact and consider the Beatles.

● Analyses of how specific generational perspectives impact engagement with the Beatles.

● Analyses of how pre-boomer cohorts engaged with the Beatles.

● Profiles and analyses of celebrity fans from different generations.

● Analyses of gender issues in relationship to generational fandom and the Beatles

● Analyses of race and its relationship to generational fandom and the band.

● Analyses of sexual orientation and its relationship to generational fandom and the band

● Reflections from members of different generations who were not fans of the Beatles.

● Reflections on the Beatles’ impact on familial and intergenerational relationships.

Please send a 250-300-word abstract, a short bio, and your recent CV to Tom Pace (tpace@jcu.edu) and Terry Hamblin (thamblin@yahoo.com) by November 1, 2024.

Autoethnographic essays, academic analyses, and combinations of these methodologies are welcome. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any further queries. We are looking forward to receiving your proposals.

The Editors
Dr. Tom Pace is Associate Professor of English at John Carroll University. He directs the university’s first-year writing and writingriting across the curriculum programs, teaches courses on writing and literature, and has published on the history and practice of writing instruction. He also teaches courses on popular culture and the Beatles. He has published essays on representations of Generation X in television and film and is the co-editor of the Rowman and Littlefield series, Generation X: Studies in Culture, Demographics and Media Representation. He has also presented research on the Beatles at the PCA national conference.

Dr. Terry Hamblin is Professor of History in the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences at SUNY Delhi. He earned a PhD in History from Stony Brook University. Dr. Hamblin has done extensive work on The Beatles and has presented this research at numerous conferences. Dr. Hamblin has published several articles and book reviews. His current book project, Revolution: The Beatles and 1960s, examines The Beatles and their influence on the social, cultural, and political developments of the 1960s