Italian Goth Subculture

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-vii

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2. Introduction: Enacting Goth in Milan in the 1980s

   • Simone Tosoni, Emanuela Zuccalà

   Pages 1-11

3. The Research: Methods and Methodology

   • Simone Tosoni, Emanuela Zuccalà

   Pages 13-40

4. Der Himmel Über Milan: The City of Milan in the Early 1980s

   • Simone Tosoni, Emanuela Zuccalà

   Pages 41-51

5. Another No Future: From Anarcho-Punk to the Activist Enactment of Dark

   • Simone Tosoni, Emanuela Zuccalà

   Pages 53-85

6. A Batcave in Via Redi: The Music Club Enactment of Dark

   • Simone Tosoni, Emanuela Zuccalà

   Pages 87-121

7. Siberia: The Loner Enactment of Dark

   • Simone Tosoni, Emanuela Zuccalà

   Pages 123-154

8. Dark Canon

   • Simone Tosoni, Emanuela Zuccalà

   Pages 155-205

9. Conclusions: An Enactment Approach to Subcultures and Post-Subcultures

   • Simone Tosoni, Emanuela Zuccalà

   Pages 207-219

10. Back Matter

    Pages 221-236

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This book is the first in-depth investigation of the Goth subculture in Italy, focusing in particular on the city of Milan. It grows out of a three year research project - the first in Italy of this scope on the topic - based on the life histories of two dozen participants. In light of this, Simone Tosoni and Emanuela Zuccalà propose an innovative approach to the study of spectacular subcultures: contrarily to the most common accounts of the spectacular subcultures of the 80s, this book describes the experience of subcultural belonging as plural and internally diversified. In particular, three different variations - or 'enactments' - of goth are described in-depth: the politically engaged one; the one typical of the scene of the alternative music clubs spread all over northern Italy; and the one, common in the little towns surrounding Milan (but not limited to it), where participants used to 'enact' the dark subculture alone or in small groups.  Their book argues that while these three different variations of goth shared the same canon of subcultural resources (music, style, patterns of cultural consumptions), they differed under relevant points of view, like forms of socialization, stance toward political activism, identity construction processes, and even their relationship with urban space. Yet, contrarily to the stress on individual differences in 'subcultural' belonging typical of post-subcultural theorists, the Milanese variations of goth appear to have been socially shared, as socially shared were the different 'practices of enactment' of the subculture that characterized each of them.

• political activism
• Milan
• identity politics
• music
• urban space

• Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy

  Simone Tosoni

• Freelance Journalist, Milan, Italy

  Emanuela Zuccalà

Simone Tosoni is Associate Professor at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy.

Emanuela Zuccalà is an independent journalist, writer and film-maker.

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