Goth :Undead Subculture
Goth :Undead Subculture
paperback
Published:
11 April, 2007
Description
The volume’s editors provide a rich history of goth, describing its play of resistance and consumerism; its impact on class, race, and gender; and its distinctive features as an “undead” subculture in light of post-subculture studies and other critical approaches. The essays include an interview with the distinguished fashion historian Valerie Steele; analyses of novels by Anne Rice, Poppy Z. Brite, and Nick Cave; discussions of goths on the Internet; and readings of iconic goth texts from Bram Stoker’s Dracula to James O’Barr’s graphic novel The Crow. Other essays focus on gothic music, including seminal precursors such as Joy Division and David Bowie, and goth-influenced performers such as the Cure, Nine Inch Nails, and Marilyn Manson. Gothic sexuality is explored in multiple ways, the subjects ranging from the San Francisco queercore scene of the 1980s to the increasing influence of fetishism and fetish play. Together these essays demonstrate that while its participants are often middle-class suburbanites, goth blurs normalizing boundaries even as it appears as an everlasting shadow of late capitalism.
Contributors: Heather Arnet, Michael Bibby, Jessica Burstein, Angel M. Butts, Michael du Plessis, Jason Friedman, Nancy Gagnier, Ken Gelder, Lauren M. E. Goodlad, Joshua Gunn, Trevor Holmes, Paul Hodkinson, David Lenson, Robert Markley, Mark Nowak, Anna Powell, Kristen Schilt, Rebecca Schraffenberger, David Shumway, Carol Siegel, Catherine Spooner, Lauren Stasiak, Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock
More Details
| Type | Book |
|---|---|
| ISBN13 | 9780822339212 |
| ISBN10 | 0822339218 |
| Number Of Pages | 456 |
| Item Weight | 703 g |
| Publisher / Reseller | Duke University Press |
| Format | paperback |
Media Reviews
“Goth: Undead Subculture is a very engaging read-a nice mÉlange of ethnographic anecdote, cultural criticism, and historical analysis-in which a multidisciplinary crew of contributors analyzes an important and complex subculture through its fashions, music, dancing, literature, sexual practices, aesthetic ideals, theatrical displays, historical precedents, and ideologies.”-Robert Walser, author of Running with the Devil: Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music “Goth creates its distinctive way of life by appropriating materials from a vast array of cultural phenomena-post-punk music, gothic literary tradition, pre-Christian mythology, sexual nonconformity, aesthetic avant-gardes-all of which it adopts primarily as style. Goth style is thus both dizzyingly heterogeneous and instantly recognizable. It is hard to imagine a single book that could do this subculture justice; yet by assembling contributors from a range of disciplines and judiciously including many voices of subcultural participants themselves, Goth: Undead Subculture manages to depict, while also reflecting critically on, this subculture’s enduring appeal. This collection will be the definitive work on its topic.”-Tim Dean, author of Beyond Sexuality
GoodReads Reviews
Author's Bio
Lauren M. E. Goodlad is Associate Professor of English and a member of the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She is the author of Victorian Literature and the Victorian State: Character and Governance in a Liberal Society.
Michael Bibby is Professor of English at Shippensburg University. He is the author of Hearts and Minds: Bodies, Poetry, and Resistance in the Vietnam Era and the editor of The Vietnam War and Postmodernity.