Papers I Am Probably Never Going to Write

Once upon a time The New Rambler was entirely composed of things I wanted to write about but lacked an outlet for. I still lack an outlet, other than this, but I seem to be rather busier now than I was then. So instead I offer partial list of topics, to be updated as I see fit. . .

Busy Being Free: Freedom and Responsibility in Rock and Roll, 1965 to the Present (or possibly the mid-1970s)
starting with “Like a Rolling Stone,” with its salvo “When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose,” and continuing through such classics as “Me and Bobby McGee” (“Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose“), with particular attention to the works of Joni Mitchell in songs such as “Cactus Tree” and “All I Want

Men in Rock
simply because I’m so sick of reading articles about Women in Rock. “Men in Rock” would be both a celebration and an exploration of the role of masculinity in rock and roll, beginning, I suppose, with Elvis and ending perhaps with Prince, particularly during his “the artist formerly known as Prince” phase

The Romance Writings of Edward Abbey
an examination of the works of Edward Abbey and how they do (and do not) fit into the conventions of romance and erotica, with possible digressions to consider the concept of the romance of the wilderness in the American mind and the works of other writers, such as Terry Tempest Williams, who explore the erotics of place

3 Replies to “Papers I Am Probably Never Going to Write”

  1. I have a list too, Laura, of so many (half-formed) ideas that I wanted to write about at some point. Sadly, the list only seems to grow as nothing ever comes off once on it.

    Maybe once my summer class is over I’ll write a post like this one. If I can remember. [I need a breather!]

  2. I should think you need a breather!

    I’m not even sure that I want to write about any of these (I don’t seem to want to write about much of anything these days), and they exist in a sort of limbo–they’re too scholarly for literary journals or mainstream media, but I can’t imagine a graduate program in which they’d fit (or at any rate not one I could tolerate). So instead they simply rattle around in my head, and now, from time to time, spill out into a list, with notes.

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