Launched in 2011 by the Grateful Dead Archive at the University of California Santa Cruz Library, Dead studies builds on momentum that has been growing among Grateful Dead researchers for some 15 years.
The annual Southwest/Texas Popular Culture and American Culture Association Conferences have seen the rise of a group that has come to be known as the Grateful Dead Scholars Caucus; one of them, the historian and archivist Nicholas Meriwether, founded an irregularly published journal called Dead letters to disseminate their work.
Now, thanks to two anonymous donors and a dedicated Editorial Board, the Grateful Dead Archive has become the publisher of a continuation of Meriwether’s work, retaining him as Editor. The new journal aims to be “the definitive organ of Grateful Dead scholarship, as well as an important community resource.”
Below, the band in 1969.
Related article: Dead fiction
