Emerald Studies in Alternativity and Marginalization – serie

The origins and deeds of the old Goths were constructed by Roman historians in fear of the Goth as a barbarian outsider; at the same time, the Goths were themselves the heroic subject of their own histories, constructed by their supporters as stories of their mythical origin and the deeds that led them to be rulers of their own kingdoms in post-Roman Late Antiquity. Who the old Goths were, their origins and their deeds, was a product of history, historiography and myth-making. In this book, Spracklen and Spracklen use the idea of collective memory to explore the controversies and boundary-making surrounding the genesis and progression of the modern gothic alternative culture. Spracklen and Spracklen argue that goth as sub-culture in the eighties was initially counter cultural, political and driven by a musical identity that emerged from punk. However, as goth music globalised and became another form of pop and rock music, goth in the nineties retreated into an alternative sub-culture based primarily on style and a sense of transgression and profanity. By this century goth became the focus of teenage rebellions, moral panics and growing commodification of counter-cultural resistance, so that by the goth has effectively become another fashion choice in the late-modern hyper-real shopping malls, devoid generally of resistance and politics. Goth, like punk, is in danger of being co-opted altogether by capitalism. This book suggests that the only way for goth culture to survive is if it becomes transgressive and radical again.

This book examines childbirth and parenting in horror texts. By analysing new texts, and re-analysing commonly used texts with new feminist methodology, this study provides a unique contribution to the fields of gender and horror studies. Focusing on horror fiction and film, this book reviews textual treatments of birth and motherhood, and how they differ from representations of fatherhood. Motherhood and birth are represented as revolting in several ways. Mothers in horror do not fulfil their gender role, and the neglect of motherhood by a woman is deemed horrific because it is the antithesis of Western patriarchal ideals of female identity. These mothers are unforgiven. Bad fathers, in contrast, are given moments of restoration that allow audiences or readers to feel immediate sympathy for them. Examining conception, birth, motherhood and fathers, this work provides a unique exploration of the monstrous and the marginalized within the horror genre.

Bulgarian popular music, the meanings it articulates, and the infrastructures of its creation, operates within a web of inter-dependencies with changing social and political contexts. Positioned on the edge of Europe, between the cultural constructs of the 'East' and 'West', Bulgarian popular music negotiates the complexities of perceived 'global' values and specificities of the 'local'.  This book takes an ethnographic approach to qualitative methodologies to create a mosaic of perspectives through the participation of music artists, critics, business figures, copyright specialists, and young audiences. It employs the metaphor of the 'crossroads' to describe the realities of the contemporary Bulgarian popular music field, developed amidst the prolonged transitions that followed the communist era. In the context of struggles for social change, popular music has participated in the creation of rituals and symbols of protest and resistance. At the same time, the new market environment created opportunities for popular music to formulate a business approach to producing standardised content. The Balkans, are a melting pot of music traditions, but are also framed as pathologically different from the rest of Europe. This book suggests that an internalised negative stereotype adds tacit complexities to Bulgarian popular music, while at the same time, expressive markers of identity, such as folklore and language, are celebrated.

Alternativity delineates those spaces, scenes, club-cultures, objects and practices in modern society that are considered to be actively designed to be counter or resistive to mainstream popular culture. The idea of the alternative in popular culture became mainstream with the rise of the counter culture in 1960s America (though there were earlier forms of alternative cultures in America and other Western countries). Alternativity is associated with marginalization, both actively pursued by individuals, and imposed on individuals and sub-cultures, and was originally represented and constructed through acts of transgression, and through shared sub-cultural capital. This edited collection maps the landscape of alternativity and marginalization, providing new theory and methods in a currently under-theorized area, setting out the issues, questions, concerns and directions of this area of study. It demonstrates the theoretical richness and empirical diversity of the interdisciplinary field it encompasses, and is deliberately feminist in its approach and its composition, with a majority of the contributors being women. Divided into three sub-sections, focused on sub-cultures, bodies and spaces, contributors explore this exciting new terrain, both through critiques of theory and new theoretical developments, and case studies of alternativity and marginalization in practice and in performance, expanding our understanding of the alternative, the liminal and the transgressive.

Music may not be an obvious area for a criminologist's attention, but there are many areas appropriate for analysis in the relationship between sound, music, rights and harm. The Use and Abuse of Music: Criminal Records explores how music is utilised to include, exclude, dominate and silence.  Analysing the connection between music and crime from an expressly critical criminological perspective, the book is divided into three main parts. Firstly, focusing on the concept of 'harmful' or deviant music, genres such as UK drill music and heavy metal are examined to highlight the connections between certain genres and criminalisation. Moving away from specifics of genre, the second section considers the use of music in war and conflict. Finally, the book reflects on the censorship and silencing of subcultures and individuals through music, highlighting the inequalities surrounding who is permitted to make noise which is often exemplified by racist, sexist and prejudicial actions.  This illuminating exploration of the deviant and transgressive nature of music is ideal for researchers, scholars and students working within the fields of criminology, sociology and musicology.