Is it possible to be a committed Christian and a rock superstar? Can political activists make good music? Do hugely successful rock bands really care about AIDS and poverty in Africa, or is it just another image-enhancing schtick? U2 and Philosophy ponders these and other seeming dichotomies in the career of the Irish supergroup. For over two decades, U2 has been one of the biggest acts in rock music. They’ve produced over a dozen platinum and multiplatinum records and won 15 Grammy Awards. Critics everywhere have praised the band’s thoughtful, complex lyrics and the artistry of their music. At the same time, Bono, the group’s lead singer, has dedicated himself to political and social causes, blurring the line between rock star and respected statesman. Offering fresh insight into the band’s music and activism, these thought-provoking essays allows fans to discover philosophy through the eyes of U2, and rediscover U2 through the eyes of philosophers.
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Mark Wrathall is professor of philosophy at the University of California, Riverside. He earned a law degree from Harvard in 1991, and a Ph.D. in philosophy from Berkeley in 1996.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Deciphering a 30 Year Aesthetic and Spiritual Journey,
By Montague Whitsel (Western Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
This review is from: U2 and Philosophy: How to Decipher an Atomic Band (Popular Culture and Philosophy) (Paperback)
As a writer with background in philosophy & religion who has been deeply into music since his early childhood, I find thinking about music on a par with listening to it and experiencing it, with body and mind fully engaged. This book is a great blend of listening, thinking and experiencing that draws on U2's own words and aims, the public's perception of the band, and finally the reflection of critical thinkers who have -- for the most part, for most of them, I gather -- listened and experienced U2 themselves for some time.
The articles in this volume deal with issues such as transcendence and the ability of music to take us to transcendent places, Bono's public personas and his struggle with ego and humility, the place of death and mortality in a responsible and awakened person's self-consciousness, the importance of place in the spiritual life, what you can and cannot 'know' on the basis of listening to a band like U2; what can be gleaned from their music -- and many more topics, including specifically religious ones, such as 'eschatology' (i.e., the discipline of theolgy that is supposed to be critical thinking about the 'end of the world'). Having been a fan of U2 since "War," I found a great deal to chew on in this book; many things that resonated with my own responses to the band's music, lyrics and political activism, as well as some surprising new ideas that I will grapple with as I continue on my journey with U2. I would recommend this book to any thoughtful person interested in the relationship between music and life.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Best!,
By A reader reader (Divided Kingdom) - See all my reviews
This review is from: U2 and Philosophy: How to Decipher an Atomic Band (Popular Culture and Philosophy) (Paperback)
This is probably the best book in the entire "X and Philosophy" series. (The Matrix and Philosophy is excellent too.) Indeed, it has so many major Heidegger scholars in it that it could have been called "U2 and Heidegger." If you like U2 and want to read some real philosophy (not the watered down stuff typical of most of these volumes), this is the book for you!
5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A top pick for fans of the group,
By Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: U2 and Philosophy: How to Decipher an Atomic Band (Popular Culture and Philosophy) (Paperback)
U2 AND PHILOSOPHY: HOW TO DECIPHER AN ATOMIC BAND is a top pick for fans of the group, introducing philosophy in the context of a popular music venue review to make it more understandable to modern audiences. What does U2 have to do with Plato, existentialism, and Nietzsche, among others? This is the perfect pick for a high school collection wishing to introduce students to philosophy without appearing dry or dull in the process!
Diane C. Donovan California Bookwatch
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imitative emotions, atheistic reaction, playboy mansion, propositional knowledge Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, Rolling Stone, Martin Heidegger, Niall Stokes, Cambridge University Press, United States, New Year's Day, Adam Clayton, Friedrich Nietzsche, Mark Wrathall, Achtung Baby, Bullet the Blue Sky, Michael Hutchence, Michael Jackson, Oxford University Press, Soren Kierkegaard, The They, Blaise Pascal, Carol Gilligan, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Mothers of the Disappeared, Old Testament, Pure Bono, Van Dieman's Land New!
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imitative emotions, atheistic reaction, playboy mansion, propositional knowledge Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, Rolling Stone, Martin Heidegger, Niall Stokes, Cambridge University Press, United States, New Year's Day, Adam Clayton, Friedrich Nietzsche, Mark Wrathall, Achtung Baby, Bullet the Blue Sky, Michael Hutchence, Michael Jackson, Oxford University Press, Soren Kierkegaard, The They, Blaise Pascal, Carol Gilligan, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Mothers of the Disappeared, Old Testament, Pure Bono, Van Dieman's Land New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 33
books:
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- The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Theory and History of Literature, Volume 10) by Jean-Francois Lyotard on page 84, page 86, and page 87
- The World As Will and Representation, In Two Volumes: Vol. I by Arthur Schopenhauer on page 151, page 154, and page 156
- Being and Time by Martin Heidegger on page 89, page 138, and page 139
- What Is Art? (Penguin Classics) by Leo Tolstoy on page 165
- Modernity and Identity by Lash and Friedman on page 56
See all 33 books this book cites
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