December 13-14 2018, De Montfort University Leicester
Hosted by the Punk Scholars Network in conjunction with the International Society for Metal Music Studies, Punk and Post-Punk, Metal Music Studies, Media and Communication Research Centre and Intellect Books.
Metal and punk cultures have long shared musical and cultural similarities. From Motörhead’s ubiquitous global presence, and the complex amalgam of Thrash Metal, Doom Metal, American Hardcore, Straight Edge, Japanese-based Burning Spirits, Black Metal, and DiY cultural production, one can see a plethora of hybridised and reinterpreted global music scenes. Indeed, the pervasive influence of metal and NWOBHM from the mid-1980s onwards has had an irreversible and notable effect on both punk and metal musical and cultural aesthetics (see Glasper, forthcoming, 2018).
In spite of their broadly separate academic literatures, from their competing inceptions in the mid to late-1970s, punk and metal music studies have shared common historical, theoretical and methodological approaches. In spite of Waksman’s timely and excellent (2009) This Ain’t No Summer of Love: Conflict and Crossover in Heavy Metal and Punk, little subsequent academic research into the crossover between metal and punk has been undertaken. The principle aim of this interdisciplinary conference is to critically reflect upon points of similarity, difference and hybridity in global punk and metal subcultures.
The Punk Scholars Network and The International Association of Metal Music Studies would like to invite new and established scholars in punk and metal music studies to critically interrogate similarities and differences, and to share their research. Not every paper needs to discuss both punk and metal: we hope that the presentation of research on the same panels to a mixed audience will allow a unique opportunity for researchers to cross perceived genre boundaries and learn from each others methodologies and trajectories.