Elvis After Elvis: The Posthumous Career of a Living Legend

Part of Rodman's agenda in writing this theoretical exploration of Elvis's continued popularity is to examine how American scholars define American culture. He's quite defensive about the idea that Elvis counts as culture, and this might be the reason his treatment lacks any sense of humor. He's interested in extreme reactions--the stereotyped Graceland/beehive fanbase and the stodgy pundits who dismiss Elvis as pop trivia--rather than the average person who either likes Elvis's music or enjoys the idea of Elvis as a thriving element of our culture. So rather than asking questions about why Elvis remains important (like Greil Marcus's Mystery Train) or giving examples of wacky Elvis icons, sightings, invocations and jokes since Elvis's death (like Marcus's Dead Elvis) or examining evidence that for some fans, Elvis is becoming deified (John Strausbaugh's E), Rodman, who teaches communication at the University of South Florida, uses a cultural studies framework to look at how post-mortal Elvis has been ""read"" by other writers. The problem is, most of the other writers have been rock critics--and they've said most of the smart stuff already. Rodman leans so heavily on Marcus that anyone who hasn't already will likely just go straight to the source. Nor is he a sociologist: he defines the entire ""twentysomething"" response to Elvis after showing '50s' TV footage to his passive undergraduate students. While the idea of Elvis as a ""point of articulation"" for our needs and concerns as a culture is compelling, the book's only new turf is claiming writing by rock critics as ammo in the cultural studies camp, and managing not to enjoy talking about Elvis. (Oct.)