Sound, Symbol, Sociality
The Aesthetic Experience of Extreme Metal Music
Authors: Unger, Matthew
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- About this book
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Based on ethnographic research within the extreme metal community, Unger offers a thought-provoking look at how symbols of authenticity and defilement fashion social experience in surprising ways. Exploring the many themes and ciphers that comprise this musical community, this book interprets aesthetic resonances as a way to understand contemporary identity, politics, and social relations. In the end, this book develops a unique argument: the internal composition of the community’s music and sound moulds symbols that shape, reflect, and constrain social patterns of identity, difference, and transgression. This book contributes to the sociology of sound and music, the study of religion in popular culture, and the role of aesthetics in everyday life. It will be of interest to upper level students, post-graduate students and scholars of religion, popular culture, and philosophy.
- About the authors
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Matthew P. Unger is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at Concordia University in Montreal. He is co-editor (with George Pavlich) of Accusation: Creating Criminals and Entryways and Criminalization. His work encompasses social theoretical and archival approaches to socio-legal ethics, religion, and sound.
- Reviews
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“It’s about time someone raised the stakes in metal studies! Unger’s book is analytically sophisticated, theoretically adventurous, rigorous, and places the academic study of metal music right where it belongs: the heart of contemporary intellectual debates on meaning and purpose in modern societies. Drawing inspiration from phenomenology, religious studies, and other unorthodox sources, Unger is unafraid to break with both timeworn and newly-ossified conventions in sociology, philosophy, and metal studies itself as he advances his refreshingly original thesis. This work will no doubt prove highly influential in the global community of metal and allied scholars, now and in the future, and will catch the attention of scholars who may be indifferent to the music but need to hear its message.” (Jeremy Wallach, Professor of Popular Culture and co-editor of “Metal Rules the Globe: Heavy Metal Music around the World”)
“This book is a timely and significant contribution to our understanding of the meaning and purpose of sound and music in our social worlds. Unger adds a richly theorized analysis to the debate about transgression in extreme metal.” (Karl Spracklen, Professor of Leisure Studies, Leeds Beckett University, UK)
- Table of contents (8 chapters)
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Introduction
Pages 1-16
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A Genre of Paradoxes and Dichotomies
Pages 17-37
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Defilement and Social Theory
Pages 39-52
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Post-secular Aesthetics and the Symbolic Constitution of Extreme Metal Music
Pages 53-63
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The Modalities of Defilement Within Extreme Metal
Pages 65-88
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Table of contents (8 chapters)
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Bibliographic Information
- Bibliographic Information
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- Book Title
- Sound, Symbol, Sociality
- Book Subtitle
- The Aesthetic Experience of Extreme Metal Music
- Authors
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- Matthew Unger
- Copyright
- 2016
- Publisher
- Palgrave Macmillan UK
- Copyright Holder
- The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s)
- eBook ISBN
- 978-1-137-47835-1
- DOI
- 10.1057/978-1-137-47835-1
- Hardcover ISBN
- 978-1-137-47834-4
- Edition Number
- 1
- Number of Pages
- XIII, 137
- Number of Illustrations
- 5 illustrations in colour
- Topics
