Reading the Grateful Dead

Since the 1960s, the Grateful Dead have welcomed and participated in academic work on the band, encouraging scrutiny from a wide variety of disciplinary and theoretical perspectives, from anthropology to sociology. Interest in Dead studies is growing across the country and around the world, and UC-Santa Cruz's Grateful Dead Archive continues to attract a high level of attention.
In Reading the Grateful Dead: A Critical Survey, Nicholas G. Meriwether has assembled essays that examine the development of Grateful Dead studies. This volume features work from three generations of scholars, including a wide variety of perspectives on the band and its cultural significance. From insiders like lyricist John Perry Barlow and longtime band publicist and historian Dennis McNally to well-known Deadhead scholars such as Barry Barnes and Rebecca Adams, the contributors to this volume offer valuable insights into the Grateful Dead phenomenon.
No other Dead book focuses on the growth and development of the discourse, contains such a range of critical approaches, nor features work by luminaries Stan Krippner and Barnes, among others. The four sections of the book describe aspects and approaches to Dead studies, along with overviews of how the discipline evolved and what it comprises today. This collection will appeal to scholars, students, and teachers interested in Dead studies and fans of the band.

Nicholas G. Meriwether studied history at Princeton and Cambridge and archival practice at the University of South Carolina. He is the Grateful Dead Archivist at UC Santa Cruz.

Acknowledgments
"Halloween Costume Party" Bob Cooperman
Introduction: "The Secret of This Tie That Binds": The Interdisciplinary Discourse of Grateful Dead Studies Nicholas G. Meriwether
PART 1: STUDYING THE DEAD
1. The Education of a Deadhead: A Letter from a Novelist Matthew Armstrong
2. The Grateful Dead in the Academy Dennis McNally
3. Thinking About the Dead: Amateur Anthropology, the Human Comedy, and Making Good Ancestors John Perry Barlow
4. "The Thousand Stories Have Come 'Round To One": Studying the Grateful Dead Phenomenon Nicholas G. Meriwether
5. Mapping the Deadhead Social Science Trip Natalie Dollar
PART 2: MUSIC AND LYRICS, MEDIUM AND MESSAGE
6. How the Grateful Dead Learned to Jam Michael Kaler
7. "Terrapin Station," Postmodernism, and the Infinite Jon Ney
8. A Super-Metacantric Analysis of "Playing in the Band" Robert H. Trudeau
9. "And Closed My Eyes To See": Buddhist Resonances in the Lyrics of the Grateful Dead Ryan Slesinger
10. The Dead Play Egypt, Thirty Years Later: Myt