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WORK TITLE: The Kinks
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http://www.winchester.ac.uk/academicdepartments/history/peopleprofiles/Pages/DrCareyFleiner.aspx * https://www.linkedin.com/in/carey-fleiner-993a4612/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 2015054313
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n2015054313
HEADING: Fleiner, Carey, 1965-
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100 1_ |a Fleiner, Carey, |d 1965-
670 __ |a Queenship and power, 2015: |b ECIP t.p. (Carey Fleiner; b. 13 September 1965)
PERSONAL
Born 1965.
EDUCATION:University of Delaware, B.A., 1983; University of Virginia, M.A., 1991, Ph.D., 1996.
ADDRESS
CAREER
British Museum, staff, 200; University of Delaware, associate professor, 2006-12; University of Winchester, senior lecturer, 2012—.
MEMBER:International Association for the Study of Popular Music, Popular Cultural Society, Classical Association of the Atlantic States, Delaware Classical Association (vice president, 2008-12).
WRITINGS
Contributor to periodicals, including the Journal of the Mid-Atlantic Popular/American Culture Association, Galpin Society Journal, and Canadian Journal of History.
SIDELIGHTS
Historian Carey Fleiner earned her bachelor of arts degree from the University of Delaware in 1983, and she then went on to complete her master’s degree and doctorate at the University of Virginia. Fleiner later worked for the British Museum in 2005, and she joined the faculty at the University of Delaware in 2006. She taught there until 2012, and has since served as senior lecturer at the University of Winchester. Fleiner has also edited two history books with Elena Woodacre, Royal Mothers and Their Ruling Children: Wielding Political Authority from Antiquity to the Early Modern Era (2015) and Virtuous or Villainess? The Image of the Royal Mother from the Early Medieval to the Early Modern Era (2016).
For The Kinks: A Thoroughly English Phenomenon, her first book as an author, Fleiner casts her historian’s eye on popular culture. Indeed, Fleiner comments on the cultural influences that shaped the Kinks and their music, as well as how British culture responded in kind. The author declares that the Kinks rivaled the Beatles in their significance, both at home and abroad. In fact, unlike the Beatles, the Kinks captured a spirit of rebellion, which then matured as a populist voice. From there, Fleiner profiles band members and brothers Ray and Dave Davies, charting their experiences of postwar Britain, their working class background, and their eventual fame and success.
Reviews of The Kinks were largely positive, and critics praised Fleiner for providing a cultural lens. Indeed, online Pop Culture Shelf correspondent A. Ebert found that the author “enlarges on the cultural stands that had a hand in the band’s music and particularly influenced the band’s lyrics that Ray Davies wrote almost exclusively.” Lauding Fleiner’s scholarly approach in Publishers Weekly, a critic advised that “the author’s background as a historian shines through in the book’s meticulous research and analytical perspective.” Dennis Drabelle, writing in the Washington Post Online, was also impressed, and he stated that “Fleiner, who teaches Classics at the University of Winchester, has given us not a bio of the band, but rather a series of linked essays on such subjects as the marketing of the Kinks and their sense of humor. For the most part, she is astute, but occasionally she overreaches.” Nevertheless, “if readers close the book still looking for a handle on the Kinks’ protean artistry, perhaps that’s for the best. Carey Fleiner has left us to work out our own Kinks.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Publishers Weekly, December 19, 2016, review of The Kinks: A Thoroughly English Phenomenon.
ONLINE
Pop Culture Shelf, http://www.popcultureshelf.com/ (August 20, 2017), A. Ebert, review of The Kinks.
University of Winchester Website, http://www.winchester.ac.uk/ (October 18, 2017), author profile.
Washington Post Online, https://www.washingtonpost.com/ (April 7, 2017), Dennis Drabelle, review of The Kinks.*
Dr Carey Fleiner
Senior Lecturer in Classical and Medieval History
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Dr Carey Fleiner
Email:Carey.Fleiner@winchester.ac.ukPhone:(+44 0)1962 824873Address:
The University of Winchester
Sparkford Road
Winchester SO22 4NR
UK
Biography
Carey Fleiner completed a BA with Distinction in History from the University of Delaware, USA, in 1983; she received an MA (1991) and PhD (1996) in History from the University of Virginia. Her areas of concentration in graduate school were Carolingian Europe (main), and subfields of Imperial Rome, Medieval Latin, and Medieval Palaeography. She worked as an Independent Scholar and private tutor until 2004 when she returned to Delaware to earn a Certification in Museum Studies.
After a brief contract in the Dept of Prehistory and Europe at the British Museum in 2005, she joined the Associate in Arts Faculty at the University of Delaware in 2006. She taught Ancient History and Popular Music History at the Associate in Arts Program until 2012; she also worked as an instructor for the same university’s International Teaching Assistant Program, training international graduate students on American culture and pedagogy. Carey joined the History Department at Winchester in autumn 2012.
Teaching responsibilities include modules on the Pax Romana, 5th-century Athens and the Carolingian Renaissance, as well as Programme Leader for the Classical Studies programme.
Higher Education Teaching Qualification
Fellowship (FHEA)
Find out more about HEA Fellowships
Expertise
Imperial Rome
Carolingian Europe
1960s popular music studies
Publications
The Kinks: A Thoroughly English Phenomenon. (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017).
Virtuous or Villainess? The Image of the Royal Mother from the Early Medieval to the Early Modern Eras (co-edited with Elena Woodacre; Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).
Royal mothers and their ruling children: wielding political authority from Antiquity to the Early Modern Era (co-edited with Elena Woodacre, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).
‘Heroes and Villains: The Medieval ‘Guitarist’ and Modern Parallels’; Collected Papers for the Symposium 'The Citole: New Perspectives' (British Museum Press 2014).
‘Surf Rock’ for the revised Grove Dictionary of American Music (OUP) (Oct. 2013).
'The Influence of Family and Childhood Experience on the Works of Ray and Dave Davies' Popular Music and Society 34.3 (July 2011), 329-50.
'History of Rock and Roll Courses: Bridging the Gap Between Reaction and Reality', The Almanack: The Journal of the Mid-Atlantic Popular/American Culture Association, Vol 17 (2008), 89-102.
'Keeping Time: Lute Strings and 16th Century English Clock Repairs', Galpin Society Journal, April 2006.
Alessandro Barbero, Charlemagne: Father of a Continent. University of California Press 2004, Review, Canadian Journal of History, December 2005.
'Dulcet Tones: Changing a Gittern into a Citole', British Museum Magazine: The Magazine for the British Museum Friends No 53 (Autumn/Winter 2005): 45.
Other:
Contributions to the EMI Group Archive Trust: Contributing writer to the Trust’s blog Sound of the Hound under the direction of David Holley.
In preparation
Under contract with Manchester University Press, A Writer's Guide to History...the Roman Empire (tentative publication date late 2017/early 2018).
Under consideration, a chapter titled 'Rosy, won’t you please come home: family, home, and cultural identity in the music of Ray Davies and the Kinks' for a collection of essays with the working title Mad Dogs and Englishness: Popular Music and English Identities edited by Mark Donnelly et al. (project under review with Bloomsbury Press, tentative publication date 2017).
Research Interests
Ancient history, especially Imperial Roman society and material culture, Roman Britain and Julio-Claudian women
Latin historians
Popular culture in Antiquity
Medieval history, medieval Latin, translation and palaeography;
Popular music in culture and society, with an emphasis on the 'British Invasion', specifically the Kinks, topics in gender roles in popular music, and the history of recorded sound
Medieval musical (stringed) instruments
Ancient and medieval popular music
Funding Awards and Professional Membership
Memberships and editorial roles
Royal Historical Society (Member, December 2011-)
Delaware Classical Association (Vice President 2008-2012)
Classical Association of the Atlantic States
International Association for the Study of Popular Music
Phi Alpha Theta (History Fraternity)
Popular Cultural Society (PCA/ACA)
Outside reviewer/editor for Routledge, Prentice Hall and Pearson on new editions of music texts
Funding awards and prizes
E. Adelaide Hahn Classical Scholarship 2012, $6000 in support of the Summer School at Rome, AAR, declined
Dena Epstein Award 2012 (finalist)
Research Assistant Grant, British Museum, London, Summer 2005
Research Assistant Grant, Autumn, MIT, Autumn 1994
Research Assistant Grant, University of Virginia, Spring 1993
Nora Zeale Prize, Women's Studies Department, University of Virginia, 1990
Carey Fleiner
Senior Lecturer at University of Winchester
University of Winchester University of Virginia
Newark, Delaware 37 37 connections
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Senior Lecturer, Dept of History, University of Winchester, Hampshire, UK (Classics and Early Medieval History) 2012-
Assistant Professor in the Associate in Arts Program at the University of Delaware 2006-
Tutor and Teacher (ITA Program), English Language Institute, University of Delaware
Specialties: Ancient History/Classical Civilisation, Latin, Popular/Rock Music History, Medieval History See less See less of Carey’s summary
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The Kinks: A Thoroughly English Phenomenon
Carey Fleiner on LinkedIn
Publish date April 8, 2017
April 8, 2017
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Doctor Who and History
Carey Fleiner on LinkedIn
Publish date June 24, 2015
June 24, 2015
Experience
University of Winchester
Senior Lecturer in Classical and Early Medieval History
Company NameUniversity of Winchester
Dates EmployedSep 2012 – Present Employment Duration5 yrs 1 mo
LocationHampshire, UK
Department of History, University of Winchester.
Programme Leader , Classical Studies (MClass; BA (Hons) Classical Studies)
Module leader (Classical Worlds; Reading and Writing History)
University of Delaware
Assistant Professor
Company NameUniversity of Delaware
Dates EmployedJan 2006 – Present Employment Duration11 yrs 9 mos
Courses taught: Ancient Rome, Ancient Greece, Western Civ to 1648, History of Rock and Roll, Latin; also conduct a study abroad course in London every winter (courses: Popular Music in Culture & Society/Men, Conflict & Society)
Education
University of Virginia
University of Virginia
Degree NameMA, PhD Field Of StudyHistory (Medieval; Ancient/Classical Civilisation), Latin
Dates attended or expected graduation 1988 – 1996
BA with Distinction, University of Delaware, 1983-1987 (History major, music minor)
Post-Grad Certification in Museum Studies, University of Delaware, 2005
University of Delaware
University of Delaware
Degree NameBA with Distinction, Field Of StudyHistory
Dates attended or expected graduation 1983 – 1987
Featured Skills & Endorsements
Teaching See 6 endorsements for Teaching6
Endorsed by Ken Hyde, who is highly skilled at this
Endorsed by 2 of Carey’s colleagues at University of Delaware
History See 5 endorsements for History5
Amy Saunders and 4 connections have given endorsements for this skill
Editing See 5 endorsements for Editing5
Amy Saunders and 4 connections have given endorsements for this skill
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Given (1)
Bennett Graff
Bennett Graff
Senior Acquisitions Editor, Gale Cengage
June 2, 2015, Carey was a client of Bennett’s
Working on a book is a daunting exercise, but having a great editor has helped to make the process a smooth and enjoyable one. Bennett helped me to craft my original proposal, and he was always on the spot for advice, feedback, and guidance. Living an ocean away, I had very limited face-to-face time with him, but when we did sit down to discuss my progress, he was on top of my project with me. He doesn't pull any punches when vetting your work, but provides critical commentary with style and humour; he's professional and efficient, qualities you want in someone who's guiding you towards a positive end goal -- writing can be a lonely project, so having someone to touch base with who's got your best interests at heart is commendable. If you're working on a commission or a project under his auspices, you're in good hands.
Accomplishments
Carey has 63 publications63
Expand publications section
Publications
Conference paper -- ‘I am the victim of my own genius:’ The Influence of Ovid’s Exilic Epistolary Verse on the Exile Poetry of Ermoldus Nigellus (829) The Kinks: A Thoroughly English Phenomenon Virtuous or Villainess? The Image of the Royal Mother from the Early Medieval to the Early Modern Era “Optima Mater: Power, Influence, and the Maternal Bonds between Agrippina the Younger ( AD 15-59) and Nero, Emperor of Rome (AD 54-68)” Presentation: Classical Poetry & a Carolingian Problem: Ermoldus Nigellus (829) and His Adaptation of Exile Poetry in his Verse-Epistle Ad Pippinum Regnum ‘Heroes and Villains: The Medieval Guitarist and Modern Parallels,’ Presenter: ‘My Name is of No Importance: The Kinks, Preservation, and 1970s Britain,’ (World of the Kinks and Beyond Presenter: “The Augustan Shaping of Imperial Education and Its Legacy in Ancient and Medieval Historians. Presenter: ‘The Kinks, Punk and Preservation: Chaos and Identity in 1970s Britain Presentation: 'Emperor as Educator: the Influence of Augustan Model of Education and Imperial Image on Medieval Biographies of Charlemagne and Louis the Pious
Carey has 12 courses12
Expand courses section
Courses
Ancient Religions and Civilisation Carolingian Renaissance Fifth-Century Athens Greek and Roman Comedy Theatre HIstory of Greece History of Rock History of Rome Latin 1 Men, Conflict and Society Pax Romana (depth study)
Carey has 5 languages5
Expand languages section
Languages
Ancient Greek English French German Latin
Carey has 1 honor1
Expand honors & awards section
Honor & Award
Fellow, Higher Education Academy, UK 2013-
Print Marked Items
The Kinks: A Thoroughly English Phenomenon
Publishers Weekly.
263.52 (Dec. 19, 2016): p110.
COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
The Kinks: A Thoroughly English Phenomenon
Carey Fleiner. Rowman & Littlefield, $34 (244p) ISBN 978-1-4422-3542-7
Fleiner, who teaches classical history at the University of Winchester, nicely places the reader into the atmosphere that
produced the Kinks, one of the most important bands of the British Invasion. The book veers from their image as
teenage rebels into their status as champions of average folk; Fleiner sets the tone early, saying this is "not a biography
of the band," and focuses on the culture and world that surrounded the Kinks and influenced their music. Arranged
chronologically, the book offers an excellent history of postwar Great Britain told through the eyes of the Davies
brothers, Ray and Dave, and their bandmates. The author's background as a historian shines through in the book's
meticulous research and analytical perspective on the cultural context in which the Kinks wrote their music. Coming
out of Britain's working class in the mid-1960s, the Davies experienced a bit of social mobility during the postwar
economic boom. The book deftly discusses the influence of their economic perspective on both the sound of their
music and the stories they chose to tell. (Mar.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"The Kinks: A Thoroughly English Phenomenon." Publishers Weekly, 19 Dec. 2016, p. 110. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA475324318&it=r&asid=34b3106676f945c0490f4cf0148c46d5.
Accessed 27 Sept. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A475324318
‘The Kinks: A Thoroughly English Phenomenon’ — but a worldwide influence
By Dennis Drabelle April 7
Call it aesthetic contrarianism or even reverse snobbery, but I tend to prefer artists and works that most fans relegate to second place or lower: Buster Keaton’s movies above Charlie Chaplin’s, “Krazy Kat” rather than “Peanuts,” the acting of Barbara Stanwyck over that of Katharine Hepburn, Carl Nielsen’s symphonies instead of Gustav Mahler’s. And in my pantheon, the Kinks come ahead of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Who.
Mick Avory, left, Peter Quaife, Dave Davies and Ray Davies of the Kinks in 1964. (Popperfoto/Getty Images)
The case for the Kinks goes something like this: They invented the power chord, notably in their first big hit, “You Really Got Me” (1964), and helped pioneer the concept album with “Arthur (1969). More than their peers, they engaged in satire and social criticism, starting in 1965 with “A Well Respected Man.” Three years later, they got the jump on the modern environmental movement with their album “The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society.” Their hit “Lola” (1970) injected sexual ambiguity into rock. Their songs have been covered and re-covered by groups from the Pretenders to Van Halen, and crop up frequently as themes in TV ads and series (e.g., “Living on a Thin Line” in “The Sopranos”). Their paean to Englishness, “Waterloo Sunset,” was performed in the closing ceremony of the 2012 Olympics.
[The Kinks — The Most Underrated Revered Band Ever?]
They’ve been so prolific that no one seems to know exactly how many albums to credit them with. Even Carey Fleiner, the author of this new study of the group, fudges the score: “The Kinks released nearly three-dozen official albums between 1964 and 1996.” That adds up to hundreds of original songs on too many topics to keep track of. As explained by one of the fans contacted by Fleiner, “If you like the Kinks, then it’s as if you like 367 different bands.” (Newcomers should start with the two-CD album “Kinks: The Ultimate Collection.”)
Some things, however, we can say with certainty. The core of the group has been the brothers Ray and Dave Davies, born — in 1944 and ’47, respectively — and raised in London. Oddly for creative children of working-class parents, they had a happy childhood; true, at age 12 Ray was sent to a school for emotionally disturbed kids, but his governing fear seems to have been that the family idyll “couldn’t last forever.” Later, Ray attended art school, where his nonconformity allowed him to fit right in.
[‘Dylan Goes Electric:’ What really happened the night he plugged in his guitar?]
When the Kinks became part of the British Invasion, an influential cadre of Americans treated them as literal invaders. The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists took exception to the Kinks’ onstage rowdiness, and the federal government accepted the union’s recommendation to deny the Kinks permission to perform in the United States. The ban lasted from 1965 to ’69, cutting the Kinks off from publicity and income they could very much have used and putting them at a disadvantage vis-a-vis the Beatles, etc. Fleiner argues, however, that the feds performed an unwitting service for the band by turning it inward. While the Beatles went into global overdrive and the Stones recycled American blues, the Kinks cultivated the English roots that have served them so well.
(Rowman & Littlefield)
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They also created characters: the aforementioned Well Respected Man, Arthur and Lola, along with Dandy, Mister Pleasant, Plastic Man, Johnny Thunder, Wicked Annabella (each featured in an eponymous song) and more. Although most of their songs were written by Ray, who usually sang lead, Dave contributed some memorable cuts, including “Death of a Clown” and “Strangers.” But the band was plagued by the their sibling rivalry, a condition exacerbated by their position as the last-born of eight children, the rest of whom were female — Ray was all those sisters’ darling until Dave came along and ousted him. The Kinks last performed together in 1996. Rumors of a reunion circulate from time to time, but so far it’s been no-no-no-no-no-la.
Fleiner, who teaches Classics at the University of Winchester, has given us not a bio of the band, but rather a series of linked essays on such subjects as the marketing of the Kinks and their sense of humor. For the most part, she is astute, but occasionally she overreaches. Regarding “David Watts,” the Kinks’ irresistibly catchy portrait of schoolboy envy, she writes that “the song is peppered with ‘fa fa fa fa’s,’ a parody of affected middle- and upper-class speech.” Possibly, but let me suggest a simpler explanation. The ultra-lyrical Kinks took every opportunity to sprinkle fa fa fa’s, la la la’s and do do do’s into their songs. (See “Lola,” “Waterloo Sunset,” “Wonderboy” and “Death of a Clown,” among dozens of others.) What Fleiner takes for a parody may be just one more application of the greatest nonsense syllabary in the annals of rock.
But if readers close the book still looking for a handle on the Kinks’ protean artistry, perhaps that’s for the best. Carey Fleiner has left us to work out our own Kinks.
Dennis Drabelle is a former contributing editor of Book World.
The Kinks: A Thoroughly English Phenomenon by Cary Fleiner (2017)
August 20, 2017 Written by Shelf Administrator
Apart from a few stylistic irritations (like some explorations in country rock in the early 1970s), the musical output of the Kinks always was famous for particularly one thing: it was English, very much so.
And it enlarged on aspects of everyday life in Britain “…such as work play, buying a house, driving a car, drinking tea, getting drunk, and getting laid….” Nevertheless, there is hardly a topic missing in their huge songbook.
Carey Fleiner not so much concentrates on a day by day biography of the band or tries to give the perfect impression of one of Britain’s most important bands. Instead, she enlarges on the cultural stands that had a hand in the band’s music and particularly influenced the band’s lyrics that Ray Davies wrote almost exclusively.
Here she accompanies the band from their beginnings in 1963 as the Ray Davies Quartet, the Boll-Weevils, the Ramrods and eventually as the Kinks until their final concert (as a band) in 1996.
Although this is a rather short book, roughly 160 pages of text, it still adds to the understanding of the Kinks’s universe as Fleiner concentrates on their continual motif of music-hall style/themes blended in with topics of everyday life.
This entertaining (and very successful) coinage had been impossible without the lyrics of Ray Davies that contained a very special dose of absurdity, irony, social criticism, satire, humor and sometimes a bleak outlook on England’s future.
Even if this is not the first book on the band and Ray Davies, it is one of the more interesting ones.
Particularly the two last chapters (‘The Past as a Refuge’ and ‘The Kinks as Others see Them’) are rather unusual. Both reveal that probably the main reason for the long-lasting popularity of the band is their ‘authenticity,’ meaning a brutal honesty about many facts of life that (could) happen to anybody, a down-to-earth simpleness and an overstated and humble respect for the past, which is mockingly romanticized. While traditional values such as working class values, family, family life, self-criticism and simple longings for company, comradeship and friendship are identifiable as major keywords that find elaborate coverage in the band’s lyrics.
Carey Fleiner is a Senior lecturer in classical studies and early medieval history at the University of Winchester.
Review by Dr. A. Ebert © 2017
Carey Fleiner. The Kinks: A Thoroughly English Phenomenon (Tempo: A Rowman & Littlefield Music Series on Rock, Pop, and Culture). Rowman & Littlefield, 2017, 244 p.
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