The tramp, the fan, and the working man: Bruce Springsteen, 'the road', and American publics

This thesis focuses on reading the music and lyrics of Bruce Springsteen for their affective cathartic potential while keeping in mind that this potential can be publicly formative. Reading Springsteen through Michael Warner's framework of publics allows this project to parse publics theory and apply it beyond Springsteen to the literary tradition of "the road". This project summarizes a trend in American literature to utilize the road as a symbol of progression. However, this trend is inverted by analyzing homosocial relationships in road narratives to show that during the early 20th century masculine displays of affect are stifled and ridiculed. I argue, in my thesis, that Springsteen revitalizes masculine expressions of homosocial and homosexual affect through performance and songwriting.;Keywords: American fiction; the road; Bruce Springsteen; Michael Warner; Public Sphere; affect; catharsis; homosocial.