The Pet Shop Boys and the Political: Queerness, Culture, Identity and Society

Contents

• Introduction , Bodie A. Ashton, (Universität Erfurt, Germany)
• Part I It’s All About Change, It’s a Metamorphosis: The Personal-Political
• 1. Che Guevara and Debussy to a Disco Beat: Intellectualism and the Pet Shop Boys, Antares Russell Leask, (North Virginia Community College, USA)
• 2. Queer(ing) Identities: Positioning the Self Pre- and Post- Bilingual, Carolin Isabel Steiner, (Hochschule Mittweida, Germany)
• 3. The End of the West: Community and Chorus in Pet Shop Boys since ‘Go West’ , Adrian Daub, (Stanford University, USA)
• 4. He Dreamed of Machines: Queer Heritage and the Pet Shop Boys’ Turing Test, Bodie A. Ashton, (Universität Erfurt, Germany)
• Part II Blaming the Colour TV: Neoliberal and Capitalist Critique
• 5. I Love You, You Pay My Rent: Emotions, Capitalism, and the Queer Art of ‘Ironic Pep’, Kate M. Davison, (Goldsmiths University of London, UK)
• 6. The Currency We Spent: The Pet Shop Boys and the Actualisation of Thatcherite Economics, Stephanie Polsky, (Goldsmiths University of London, UK)
• 7. Buying and Selling Your History: Navigating the Ruins of Neoliberalism with Tennant and Lowe, Jonathan Dean, (University of Leeds, UK)
• Part III We Came from Outer Space: Siting and Spatiality
• 8. Go West, the Turnerian Frontier, and the End of the Cold War Torsten Kathke, (Johannes-Guttenberg-Universität Mainz, Germany)
• 9. New York City Boy and Queer (Be)Longing, Sabrina Mittermeier (Universität Kassel, Germany)
• 10. “All that Swinging Sixties. It Never Did Anyone Any Good, Did It?” The Pet Shop Boys and the Scandal of the Profumo Affair, Christopher Spinks (University of East Anglia, UK)
• 11. The Euroboys’ October Symphony: Queer Experience, Thatcherism, and the Late-Soviet Imaginary of the Pet Shop Boys, Catherine Baker (University of Hull, UK) and Daryl Leeworthy, (University of Swansea, UK)
• Part IV We’re the Pet Shop Boys: Metanarrativity
• 12. It’s a Sin: Religious Imagery and Queer Identities in It Couldn’t Happen Here, Lisa-Marie Pöhland (Technische Universität Chemnitz, Germany)
• 13. What Have I Done to Deserve This? Personal, Professional, and Political Representations in Smash Hits during the ‘Imperial Phase’ (1986-1988), Lexi Webster (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK)
• 14. You’ve Been Around but You Don’t Look Too Rough: The Pet Shop Boys as Legacy Artists, Abby S. Waysdorf (Universiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands)