The End of Nostalgia: Music in Mad Men; Nov 13-15: SAMLA Conference, Durham, North Carolina

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Anthony Dotterman/Adelphi University
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Peggy Lee's version of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller's song "Is that All There Is?" features prominently in the first episode of season 7b of Mad Men. Indeed, the song alludes to the existential crisis of Don Draper (whose acquired wealth and success in the ad agency business have given way to emotional ennui) and the larger disappointment in the American political and cultural optimism of the 1960s. In short, Peggy Lee's song functions as a modern version of the Greek chorus in the episode as the viewer is impelled to contemplate the changing mood of society through the episode's chosen soundtrack. As a disciple of David Chase, who used popular music prominently in The Sopranos, Weiner's use of music in storytelling is perhaps unsurprising. Considering that the 1960s-1970s was a crucial time in American history with regards to a fracturing listening public, Don Draper has been described as belonging to Sinatra, and a nostalgic 1950s America, and not the iconoclastic, youth culture of the Beatles and Rolling Stones, however, music is both a source of contested values and figurative Greek chorus in Mad Men. The following panel then seeks original essays then that examine the role of music in Matthew Weiner's Mad Men. What can Mad Men's use of music tell us about the show's interest and attitudes towards the changing mores of the United States? Please email paper topics of 500 words or less to Dotterman@Adelphi.edu no later than June 15, 2015.