Studying the Dead : the Grateful Dead Scholars Caucus, an informal history /

Meriwether's Studying the Dead joins the increasingly crowded arena of popular music scholarship. That having been said, the volume is meticulously researched and far exceeds popular music frivolity. As the Grateful Dead Scholars Caucus demonstrates, serious scholarship on the Grateful Dead's output has entered the canon. Meriwether (archivist, McHenry Library, Univ. of California, Santa Cruz) enlisted several Grateful Dead heavyweights, and the resulting discourse is exhaustive and insightful. Contributors are heavily published Grateful Dead scholars, and their research is clear, concise, and probing. Part 1, "Voices," encapsulates the types of Dead research that has been ongoing for the past 20 years. Part 2, "Conversations," comprises detailed discussions of the first 15 Grateful Dead Scholars Caucuses dating back to 1998. This second section culminates in a chapter containing the abstracts from the 13th caucus, held in 2010 as part of the Southwest/Texas Popular Culture and American Culture Association Conference. The bibliography and indexing are thorough. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals. D. V. Moskowitz University of South Dakota