Series | Studi e ricerche
Edited book | Postcolonial Publics: Art and Citizen Media in Europe
Chapter | Bowie in Berlin, or, the Postcolonial Intellectual Unmasked
Bowie in Berlin, or, the Postcolonial Intellectual Unmasked
Abstract
In this chapter, I use the perhaps unlikely figure of David Bowie to test the boundaries of the postcolonial intellectual, referring primarily to his years in Berlin, the city where, in his celebrated 1987 concert at the Reichstag, he sent his “best wishes to our friends who are on the other side of the Wall”. At the same time, I use Bowie’s extraordinary life and work, and the media machinery that surrounded it, to contest the so-called ‘demotic turn’ through which increasing intellectual authority has been given to ordinary citizens, each of whom can become a celebrity, if not necessarily an intellectual, in his or her own right.
Submitted: July 13, 2022 | Accepted: Oct. 21, 2022 | Published Jan. 26, 2023 | Language: en
Keywords Postcolonial • Intellectual • Bowie • Celebrity • Social media
Copyright © 2023 Graham Huggan. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-677-0/012
