Disco Divas · Default Product

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Wedged between the idealism and activism of the 1960s and the avarice of the 1980s, the 1970s tend to be allocated a slender role in American cultural and social history. Only now have scholars begun to examine the suspect decade—perhaps in part because it has seemed too close, at least for many who lived through it, and in part because cultural critics have rendered it synonymous with cultural stagnation and overall frivolity. Ironically, in everything from retro fashion to interior design to music, American culture today is heavily influenced by this decade so routinely scorned by the academy. Proceeding from the idea that the preoccupation with nostalgia veils the decade's true cultural significance, the essays in Disco Divas reveal that the 1970s, far from being an era of cultural stasis, were a time of great social change, particularly for women. Disco Divas argues that 1970s popular culture provided an arena in which women's roles could be negotiated in new ways and, through individual chapters on topics ranging from film, music, television, and advertising to cheerleaders, teen-idol fans, and second-wave feminists, demonstrates how these roles were renegotiated. The great cu

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