CfP: Tribe & Rite: A Heavy Metal Student Conference

Heavy Metal UVic presents “Tribe & Rite: A Heavy Metal Student Conference,” to be held at the University of Victoria on November 8th to 9th. Metal culture celebrates the wild, the grotesque, and the forbidden, and it is our hope that this conference will allow for such celebration to take place – with a little bit of headbanging to match! Join us at the University of Victoria for a weekend of engaging ideas and crushing heavy metal!

“The South of Heaven Symposium was a fantastic gathering of metal fans and scholars. It’s living proof that metal music has become one of the richest sources of pop culture debate and discussion in recent years. It was a pleasure to be a part of the event \m/” – Sam Dunn

Possible Topics:
The makings and markers of a metalhead | Metal as genre, subculture, counterculture, or tribe | Rites and rituals of regional/historical metal movements | The transformation of metal by academia and vice versa | Generational differences in metal | The influence of metal on other cultural movements (e.g. punk, hippy), and vice versa | Comparison of metal with other cultural movements | Comparison of subcultures within metal (e.g. the radical politics of crust, the Satanism, neo-paganism, and occultism of black metal) | The future and fate of metal | Inclusive and exclusive behavior among metalheads| The relationship between metal music and memorabilia

Metal culture celebrates the wild, the grotesque, and the forbidden. We invite papers on these themes from across the humanities, social sciences, fine arts, and related disciplines. Papers can draw on lyrics, musical technique, aesthetics (music, fashion, album art), innovations in metal, regional and historical metal movements, and more.

Please send proposals to: metalcon@uvic.ca in Word format by 10/3/14

Include author name(s), department and institution, email address, title of presentation, and an abstract of 50-100 words.