They are perhaps Britain’s most European band of all, far bigger on the continent than in their homeland. Here, Dr Sophia L Deboick traces Depeche Mode’s creative awakening, back to its roots, behind the Iron Curtain
The Guardian, Comment is Free: Will a night in Kurt Cobain’s apartment offer fans religious rapture?
From Graceland and the Chelsea Hotel to Depeche Mode’s Basildon, places hallowed by rock stars are the pilgrimage sites of our times
Talk: ‘That is walking on hallowed ground’ – Place, Pilgrimage, Identity and Otherness in South Essex Fan Cults
Talk given at Club Critical Theory, Southend-on-Sea, on 4th December, as part of the Theorizing the Other: Migration and Cultural Tourism event, chaired by Andrew Branch
Lecture: ‘There’s no doubt – I’m one of the devout’: Fandom and Popular Cults, Sacred and Secular
Guest lecture given on COM 5218 Celebrity and Fan Culture module, Richmond American International University, London, on 16th October, at the invitation of Associate Professor of Communication, Dr Fred Vermorel
Lecture: ‘There’s no doubt – I’m one of the devout’: Fandom and Popular Cults, Sacred and Secular
Guest lecture given on COM 5218 Celebrity and Fan Culture module, Richmond American International University, London, on 24th October, at the invitation of Associate Professor of Communication, Dr Fred Vermorel
Talk: ‘Reach out and touch faith’ – Pilgrimage and fandom, sacred and secular
Guest ‘sermon’ given at Hertford College Chapel, Oxford, at the Choral Evensong service on 21st October, at the invitation of the College Chaplain, Gareth Hughes
Blog: ‘Our Hobby is Depeche Mode’ – Deller, fandom and the south east Essex scene
Tomorrow the Jeremy Deller retrospective ‘Joy in People’ opens at London’s Hayward Gallery. Part of the exhibition will engage with ‘Deller’s interest in the social character of pop music’ and ‘the enthusiasms, rituals and passionate loyalty of fans [which] have all provided the artist with inspiration’
Sophia Deboick 