PUNK/ASKESIS

Thesis (Ph.D.), American Studies, Washington State UniversityThis work examines the aesthetics of traditional punk culture and interprets them as a contemporary form of the ancient Greek practice of askesis. The primary research for this work was composed of personal observations and experiences, an archive of both academic and non-academic texts and both written and video interviews. The goal of this project is to intertwine the voices and experiences of various individuals prominent within punk culture within a framework of a broad range of philosophy and cultural studies scholarship (The works of Michel Foucault figure prominently here.) in order to arrive at a broader understanding of traditional punk philosophy and culture.Given that punk communities are often inherently resistant to not only being studied but to the methods and objectives of traditional academic research inquiry, this work observes a handful of guidelines and notes: 1) Traditional punk culture can be represented by specific spokes- people, artifacts, performances and artistic output, 2) Punk culture can be read as text, 3) Video interview sources will be used frequently in order to avoid some of the inherent problems of transcription, and 4) The language in which I've chosen to write the piece is intentionally designed to be accessible and comprehensible to both academics and a more general audience rather than being limited to a small audience of academics who all share a jargon-dependent discourse.Utilizing these frameworks and sources, I argue that not only is traditional punk a form of askesis, but that the purpose of traditional punk aesthetic and askesis is the cultivation of experience in the pursuit of raw power.Program in American Studies, Washington State Universit