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Greil Marcus

グレイル・マーカス

Greil Marcus

Profile

Gender
Male
Born
1945-06-19 （San Francisco, California, U.S.）
Nationality
United States
Languages
English
Religion
Judaism
Residence History
San Francisco (birthplace) → Northern California (residence) → New York (teaching / residence at times)

Career

Occupations
Author, Critic, Journalist
Active Years
1969-
Affiliations
National Book Critics Circle (board of directors, 1983–1989)
Memberships
National Book Critics Circle
Influenced By
Michael Rogin (political scientist)
Influenced
Countless rock journalists and cultural critics

Education

University of California, Berkeley
American Studies / American Studies
Degree: 学士
Period: 1960年代
Year of Graduation: 1967
Country: United States
Undergraduate in American Studies; later undertook graduate studies in political science at Berkeley.
University of California, Berkeley (graduate studies)
Political Science (graduate studies) / Political Science
Period: 1960年代
Country: United States
Undertook graduate studies in political science; details of degree completion are unclear.

Awards & Nominations

Works

Major Works

Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n' Roll Music

1975 Music criticism / Cultural criticism

Places rock and roll within a broader American cultural framework, linking popular music to literature and folk traditions; acclaimed for showing unities in the American imagination.

American cultural archetypesRock and rollFolk tradition and literature

Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the 20th Century

1989 Cultural history / Criticism

Uses punk rock as a transhistorical lens to trace hidden genealogies across 20th-century Western culture, linking Dada, Situationists, heretics, and punk.

Punk cultureCountercultural movementsGenealogy of cultural movements

Dead Elvis: A Chronicle of a Cultural Obsession

1991 Cultural criticism

A collection examining the cultural obsession with Elvis Presley, exploring his symbolism and impact.

IconographyAmerican popular cultureDeath and memory

Invisible Republic: Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes

1997 Music criticism / Biographical study

Starts from Bob Dylan bootleg recordings to dissect the American subconscious and folk traditions.

Bob DylanAmerican subconsciousFolk tradition

When That Rough God Goes Riding: Listening to Van Morrison

2010 Music criticism

An attempt to understand Van Morrison's genius by examining the extraordinary, unclassifiable moments in his long career.

Analysis of artistic geniusMusic and spiritualityCareer study

Bibliography

  • Rock and Roll Will Stand (editor, 1969)
  • Double Feature: Movies & Politics (co-author, 1972)
  • Mystery Train (1975, 6th edition 2015)
  • Stranded: Rock and Roll for a Desert Island (editor & contributor, 1979)
  • Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung (editor of Lester Bangs, 1987)
  • Lipstick Traces (1989)
  • Dead Elvis (1991)
  • In the Fascist Bathroom (1993)
  • The Dustbin of History (1995)
  • Invisible Republic (1997)
  • Double Trouble (2001)
  • The Manchurian Candidate (2002, revised 2020)
  • The Rose & the Briar (co-editor, 2004)
  • Like a Rolling Stone (2005)
  • The Shape of Things to Come (2006)
  • A New Literary History of America (co-editor, 2009)
  • Best Music Writing 2009 (guest editor, 2009)
  • When That Rough God Goes Riding (2010)
  • Bob Dylan by Greil Marcus: Writings 1968–2010 (2010)
  • The Doors: A Lifetime of Listening to Five Mean Years (2011)
  • The History of Rock 'n' Roll in Ten Songs (2014)
  • Three Songs, Three Singers, Three Nations (2015)
  • Real Life Rock: The Complete Top Ten Columns, 1986–2014 (2015)
  • Under the Red White and Blue (2020)
  • Folk Music: A Bob Dylan Biography in Seven Songs (2022)
  • What Nails It (2024)

Style & Themes

Literary Style
A hybrid of cultural-historical approach and literary essayistic proseBroad, associative, cross-disciplinary argumentation using metaphor and riffing
Recurring Motifs
American cultural archetypesMusic as mythRebellion and counterculture

Legacy

Greil Marcus elevated rock criticism into broader cultural criticism, interpreting rock and roll as a lens on American imagination, politics, and myth. Mystery Train is widely acclaimed and has influenced generations of critics.

Academic Societies

  • National Book Critics Circle

In Popular Culture

  • Set a standard in rock criticism and became a reference point for criticism crossing music, film, and literature.

Quotes

  • Mystery Train is among the few works of criticism that can move me to something close to tears.
    Source: Dwight Garner (The New York Times) (2015)
  • But I'm Jewish, there's no question about that.
    Source: Greil Marcus (interview) (2012)

Trivia

  • Born Greil Gerstley; later adopted and took the surname Marcus.
  • Married Jennelle/Jenny Marcus in 1966; had two daughters (daughter Emily died in 2023).
  • Mystery Train was included in Time's list of the 100 best nonfiction books since 1923 (2011).