Foreword by Rebecca G. Adams
Introduction by Robert G. Weiner
Precisely How and Why I Didn't Kill Jerry: Ethnography, Surrealism, and The Millennium Shows by Philip E. Baruth
A Pilot Study in Dream Telepathy with the Grateful Dead by Stanley Krippner
Legally Dead: The Grateful Dead and American Legal Culture by David Fraser and Vaughan Black
The Grateful Dead Onstage in "World Music" by Thomas Vennum, Jr.
"No, but I've Been to Shows": Accepting the Dead and Rejecting the Deadheads by David L. Pelovitz
Why Are There So Many Jewish Deadheads? by Douglas M. Gertner
Bakhtinian Carnival, Corporate Capital, and the Last Decade of the Dead by Brad Lucas
Understanding "Show" as a Deadhead Speech Situation by Natalie Dollar
Is There a Day of the Month Effect in "Beat It On Down the Line?" by Robert K. Toutkoushian
The Grateful Dead Experience: A Factor Analytic Study of the Personalities of People Who Identify with the Grateful Dead by William McCown and Wendy L. Dulaney
"High Time" and Ambiguous Harmonic Function by Walter Everett
Space, Motion, and Other Musical Metaphors by Shaugn O'Donnell
The Grateful Dead Legendstock: Based on Alan Trist's Water of Life -- A Tale of the Grateful Dead by Marjorie C. Luesebrink
The Grateful Dead vs. the American Dream? by Jason Palm
The Annotated "Ramble on Rose": An installment in The Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics (a work in progress) by David Dodd
"Laid my proposition down/Laid it on the line": Gambling and the Storyteller in Robert Hunter's Lyrics by Anissa Craghead
Grateful Dead: Manifestations from the Collective Unconscious by Mary Goodenough
Clinging to the Edge of Magic: Shamanic Aspects of the Grateful Dead by Nancy Reist
The Grateful Dead as Community by Rachel Wilgoren
Deadhead Tales of the Supernatural: A Folkloristic Analysis by Revell Carr
The Piping of Heaven: Reckless Musings on Philosophical Taoism and the Grateful Dead Phenomenon by Joseph P. Noonan III
The Ripple Effect by Joseph Holt
Afterword
The Curriculum of Joy by Steve Silberman

The Grateful Dead, one of the most meticulously documented rock bands, significantly influenced American music and popular culture. Its popularity has endured for three decades despite mixed critical reception. Jerry Garcia, thought of among many as a musical icon and spokesperson for more than one generation of fans, was often equally scorned by various critics. This collection of scholarly essays attests to the varied fields of interest the band and its followers, known as Deadheads, have affected, including psychology, law, and ethnomusicology. The contributions explore the diversity of the culture of fans, empirically analyze the music, apply literary criticism to the lyrics, and explore Dead-related philosophical and theological concepts - in other words, they are as eclectic as the myriad Grateful Dead fans themselves.
Appealing to Grateful Dead scholars, fans, and collectors alike, these twenty-two essays are grouped by subject, and each essay includes a bibliography of resources for further research.