ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the American and British contexts for punk, both scenes of economic and social decline and crisis. I particularly focus on the United States and its post-1960s condition of stagflation, suburban anomie, and loss of imperial power. I outline punk music’s aesthetics, paying particular attention to the accounts by Lester Bangs and Dick Hebdige. The chapter then turns to the literary context for punk and Acker’s writing, including a sense of stagnation and conservatism, and the Downtown Scene of New York in the 1970s as a punk-aligned response. I discuss Acker’s role in this scene, and her ongoing affiliation with a transnational punk underground.
