When all the publicity about his class “Elvis as Anthology” began in 1992, Peter Nazareth faced a lot of jeering and prejudice. A radio interviewer from Chicago asked him, on air, whether his class was going to be in pharmaceuticals or cookery. He said it was going to be in literature: he was going to analyze the work as he did novels. There were three targets: (1) Elvis, as working class; (2) Iowans, as hicks; (3) Peter Nazareth, as foreigner. Comments Peter: “I discovered that when they do not understand, most Americans, including professional critics, mock and put down from a position of superiority.”
Peter Jennings had just interviewed a guy called Peter Nazareth on ABC’s World News Tonight. Peter Nazareth had just come out out of the bush, so to speak, out of Africa, and started teaching Elvis 101. The first university course on Elvis. I mean, many people idolized Elvis but to make him serious stuff in university, never mind it was a university in a third- world state like Iowa, was real way-out stuff.
