Out now! Blake 2.0: William Blake in Twentieth-Century Art, Music and Culture

Blake 2.0 has just been published by Palgrave, edited by Steve Clark, Jason Whittaker, and myself. It’s a collection of essays on the reception of Blake beyond the traditionally literary.

It has my essay on Blake and Jim Morrison in it (to accompany the posts on the subject on Jason’s Zoamorphosis blog), along with many other choice pieces: particularly in the realm of Blake and pop music, there are essays on Blake and Bob Dylan; Nick Cave, Julian Cope, the Libertines and Billy Bragg; as well as Blake set to music, and ‘covers’ of  ‘Jerusalem’ (aka ‘And did those feet…).

Blake said of his designs, ‘Tho’ I call them Mine I know they are not Mine’. Then who owns Blake? Where does his work begin and end? There is something about reading and viewing Blake’s multimedia which spurs creation in response. His reception goes far beyond academic criticism because he is more than just a literary figure: artist, printmaker, philosopher, revolutionary, visionary, Blake has always been more than words on a page. This volume follows some of his digital and analog regenerations in the fields of comics, cultural criticism, copyright; sculpture, surrealism, art history, art therapy; film, folk, rock, pop, and the afterlife of Blake’s own music and lyrics. A variety of virtual selves has been created for Blake, his works, and his audience by the twentieth-century dissemination across a wide variety of media, and the more recent interactive possibilities raised by Web 2.0 as technology and as concept.

‘A ground-breaking series of essays on the widely-spread and dynamic influence of Blake’s composite art on the artistic practices of the twentieth century, right up to the emerging digital age.’ – Professor Edward Larrissy, Queen’s University Belfast, UK

Blake and Jim Morrison

I’ve been working on an essay on Blake and Jim Morrison for the collection Blake 2.0: William Blake in Twentieth-Century Art, Music and Culture (forthcoming from Palgrave), which I have the privilege and pleasure of co-editing with Jason Whittaker and Steve Clark. (In fact, it is also a privilege and pleasure to write about Mr. Mojo Risin — it’s like a teenage dream come true, combining scholarly and musical obsessions, on the subject of one of my favourite intellectual rock gods…)

I threw myself into it and, inevitably, the essay was bursting at the seams about as much as Jim himself (and several Blake characters too, as I argue…) so I’m using some of the material for postings on the Zoamorphosis blog. One on Blake, Morrison, and prophecy, and another on tracing what the Lizard King might have read by the Mental Prince. (But, for the bulging analysis, you’ll have to wait for the book…)

Update, March 2012: the book is out!

A review of Queer Blake on two fine blogs

Check out Roger Whitson’s review of QB: it’s posted on his blog and on Zoamorphosis (where the book was also noticed before it came out: see the “Two New Publications from Palgrave” post from back in May 2010).