Punk, Ageing and Time

To date there has been no plotting of punk scholarship which speaks to ‘time’, yet there are some clear bodies of work pertaining to particular issues relevant to it, including ageing and/or the life course and punk, memory and/or nostalgia and punk, ‘punk history’, and archiving and punk. Punk, Ageing and Time is therefore a timely (pun intended) book.

What this edited collection does for the first time is bring together contemporary investigations and discussions specifically around punk and ageing and/or time, covering areas such as: punk and ageing; the relationship between temporality and particular concepts relevant to punk (such as authenticity, DIY, identity, resistance, spatiality, style); and punk memory, remembering and/or forgetting. Multidisciplinary in nature, this book considers areas which have received very little to no academic attention previously.

1. Introduction.- 2. Rejecting and Resisting Ageism: Female Perspectives of Ageing with Punk.- 3. Lifestyle and Memory: Profiling Two Generations of Ageing Czech Male Punks.- 4.‘… And Out Come the Comps’: Punk-O-Rama, Pro Skater, and Their Roles as Peak Music Experiences in a Current Punk Identity.- 5. Young Punk, Old Punk, Running Punk: Keeping the Old Ones Cool and the Young Ones Fresh.- 6. Live Fast, Die Old. Experiences of Ageing in Portuguese Punk DIY Scenes since the Late 1970s.- 7. “I’m Not Someone Who Calls Himself an Anarchist, I am an Anarchist”: The Continuing Significance of Anarchism in the Later Lives of Ex-Adherents of British Anarcho-Punk.- 8. Memories of the Past, Inequalities of the Present: The Temporality of Subcultural Violence, Gender, and Authenticity.- 9. Punk, Literature and Midlife Creativity: Ordinary Stories, Ordinary Men.- 10. Exploring Older Punk Women’s Conceptualisation of ‘Punk’ through Participant-Created Zine Pages.- 11. Working With/In: An Exploration of Queer Punk Time and Space in Collaborative Archival Workshops.- 12. Enduring Attachments: On the Temporalities of Punk.- 13. Generation Lost: Resignation, Rupture, and the Infinite Realities of Post-Future Punk.

Laura Way is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Roehampton, UK. She is currently engaged in research projects with young fathers and local Travellers, and ongoing research concerning marginalised identities and punk. Laura’s monograph – Punk, Gender and Ageing: Just Typical Girls (2020) – was the first to focus solely on the experiences of older punk women. She is a qualified teacher in lifelong learning and an experienced qualitative researcher, particularly in the areas of creative and participatory methods, and collaborative, community-based work. Laura is an editor of Sociological Research Online and sits on the editorial board for Punk & Post-Punk journal.

Matt Grimes is Senior Lecturer in Music Industries and Radio at Birmingham City University, UK. Matt’s doctorate explored ageing, identity and the ideological significance of anarchism in the life courses of ageing adherents of anarcho-punk. He is currently writing up this research for his forthcoming monograph with Palgrave Macmillan, Ageing, Identity, Memory and British Anarcho-Punk: 'Life We Make' (Palgrave Macmillan). He has published on the subjects of anarcho-punk, anarcho-punk ‘zines, punk pedagogy, popular music and spirituality, DIY/Underground music cultures/subcultures, counter-cultural movements, and radio for social change. He is the Punk Scholars Network’s general secretary and associate editor for Punk & Post-Punk journal. Matt is also a lifelong supporter of Millwall FC.