Review
“This academic-minded book is best suited to cultural studies aficionados and Goths themselves, but may be useful to anyone seeking to understand the ideologies and lifestyles of the black-eyeliner set. It exhumes the roots of goth in punk rock, vampire lore, Renaissance fashions, and other sources; probes identity and community; and traces goth’s arc in pop culture, from David Bowie and Siouxie Sioux to
Edward Scissorhands and
Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”
--Keith Goetzman,
Utne Reader“
Goth:Undead Subculture, Lauren M. E. Goodlad and Michael Bibby's collection of scholarly essays (the first such book devoted solely to the scrutiny of all things goth, the editors claim), succeeds when its contributors take clearly delineated topics and time frames (Tim Burton's nostalgia for 1950s and '60s monster movies, or Buffalo's nightclub scene from 1982 to 1984) as their objects of inquiry. The pièce de résistance in this mode is Bibby's stunningly precise reading of Joy Division's history.”
--Andrea Walker,
Bookforum“Here are 22 essays that will appeal to the pop-culture critic, academic or general reader who’s always been curious about those mysterious, often mushroom pale individuals who wear head-to-toe black in the summer time. . . . [A] reader who picks and chooses at this book’s dark buffet . . . will find much to enjoy.”
--Theresa Starkey,
Paste“The essays in this collection discuss all the traditional areas of cultural studies—performance, community, self-representation, gender relations—but also consider some of goth’s more oblique elements, such as literary styles, song lyrics, nostalgia, fetishism, and its connections with religion and apostasy. . . . [R]efreshingly free of the kind of heavy theoretical jargon that would make even the palest goth blanch in dismay.”
--Mikita Brottman,
The Chronicle Review“This collection of essays, focusing heavily on goth and gender, demonstrates the complexity of an often misunderstood subculture.”
--Jenna Humphrey,
Curve“Like most of the subcultures to which people make allegiance in youth, but maintain to some degree in adulthood, Goth is a confluence off hobbyism and a passionate sense of the constructed self. This is well understood by those pieces in this intelligent collection of writings that are primarily documentary accounts of the authors’ involvement in, and self-identification with, Goth, or those which celebrate the fashion, the music, and the books.”
--Roz Kaveny,
Times Literary Supplement
Product Description
Since it first emerged from Britain’s punk-rock scene in the late 1970s, goth subculture has haunted postmodern culture and society, reinventing itself inside and against the mainstream.
Goth: Undead Subculture is the first collection of scholarly essays devoted to this enduring yet little examined cultural phenomenon. Twenty-three essays from various disciplines explore the music, cinema, television, fashion, literature, aesthetics, and fandoms associated with the subculture. They examine goth’s many dimensions—including its melancholy, androgyny, spirituality, and perversity—and take readers inside locations in Los Angeles, Austin, Leeds, London, Buffalo, New York City, and Sydney. A number of the contributors are or have been participants in the subculture, and several draw on their own experiences.
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
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