Thread by @industrial_book

Someone recently asked about academic views of #goth culture. This thread compiles a few dozen of sources on exactly this topic.

Ready to fill ye olde bookshelf?

The Gothic: A Very Short Introduction - Nick Groom, 2012
[crash course on gothic, with a clear path from classical-era goths to modern subculture]

Goth: Identity, Style and Subculture — Paul Hodkinson, 2002
[a foundational text, as much about methodology as goth history/music]

Goth Culture: Gender, Sexuality and Style — Dunja Brill, 2008
[probably the best ethnography of modern-ish goth culture]

Goth's Dark Empire — Carol Siegel, 2005
[another ethnography, focused more on American scenes, with perhaps too much emphasis on BDSM]

Darkly: Black History and America's Gothic Soul — Leila Taylor, 2019
[my favorite scene-related book, it goes into the racial histories of American goth/ic]

Goths, Gamers, & Grrrls: Deviance and Youth Subcultures — Ross Haenfler, 2010
[puts goth in context w/ other subcultures]

Italian Goth Subculture: Kindred Creatures and Other Dark Enactments in Milan, 1982-1991 — Simone Tosoni & Emanuela Zuccalà, 2020
[a wonderfully granular history/sociology of one Italian city's scene over a single decade]

Gothic Music: The Sounds of the Uncanny — Isabella van Elferen, 2012
[a lit/filmic approach to modern, mostly Euro goth music]

Goth Music: From Sound to Subculture — van Elferen & Jeffrey Weinstock, 2015
[a continuation, concerned more with contemporary aesthetics than history]

The Evolution of Goth Culture: the Origins and Deeds of the New Goths — Karl & Beverley Spracklen, 2018
[a solid history & ethnography]

Goth: Undead Subculture — edited by Lauren Goodlad & Michael Bibby, 2007
[grab bag of scholarly & not-quite-scholarly views on all things goth]

And these are just the actual books! Dissertations and master's theses exist, of which the most important is Music of the Goth Subculture by Charles Allen Mueller (2008).

As for academic journal articles, I won't even begin—there are TONS in sociology, anthropology, musicology, & gothic studies—a nominally separate field whose Sara Martin wrote the foundational "Gothic Scholars Don’t Wear Black: Gothic Studies and Gothic Subcultures" in 2002.

There are furthermore a lot of good academic books on related topics, such as Steampunk: Gender, Subculture & the Neo-Victorian by Clare Nally (2019) and my own Assimilate: A Critical History of Industrial Music (2013). But let's stay focused on the G-word for now.

Compendia of original goth-adjacent zines have been published by Whippings and Apologies, Grim Humour, & others

There are a LOT of books on goth that are not strictly academic, but may be still useful. I haven't read all of these, so caveat emptor. I do recommend the first few…

Some Wear Leather, Some Wear Lace: The Worldwide Compendium of Postpunk and Goth in the 1980s — Andi Harriman & Marloes Bontje, 2014

Encyclopedia Gothica — Liisa Ladouceur, 2011

Gothic Charm School: An Essential Guide for Goths and Those Who Love Them — Jillian Venters, 2009

Later this month John Robb will publish The Art of Darkness: The History of Goth.

It'll be worth checking out. I have not yet read it, but have heard good things about it. He's a smart guy and has seen so, so much firsthand.

More:

Dark Reign of Gothic Rock: in the Reptile House with the Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus and the Cure — Dave Thompson, 2002

The Goth Bible: A Compendium for the Darkly Inclined — Nancy Kilpatrick, 2004

Gavin Baddeley wrote Goth: Vamps and Dandies (2010) and Goth Chic (2002)

There's also:

Worldwide Gothic: A Chronicle of a Tribe — Natasha Scharf, 2011

Goth: The Design, Art and Fashion of a Dark Subculture — Chris Roberts, Hywel Livingstone, Emma Baxter-Wright, 2017

Uniquely worthy of mention here is Mick Mercer, photographer, zinester (Panache), and chronicler of the scene since its literal first days. His books include:

Gothic Rock Black Book ('88)
Gothic Rock ('91)
Hex Files ('97),
21st Century Goth ('02)
Music to Die For ('09)

Beyond this exist volumes and memoirs devoted to individual artists. Several books apiece have been written about The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Sisters of Mercy, The Damned, and Bauhaus.

Some of these are by insiders (e.g. David J, Lol Tolhurst) and some by diligent, scholarly fans such as Mark Andrews (on the Sisters) and Samantha Bennett (on Siouxsie).

Others vary in quality, including bad information, naïvety, and shameless cash-grabs.

There is also a sea of individual memoirs of scenesters, often self-published. Surely some are very good. Dunno.

Anyhow, I hope this helps somebody to find out more about academic, sub/cultural, literary, and musicological approaches to goth. There is real, good work being done!

I neglected to mention

A Kiss across the Ocean: Transatlantic Intimacies of British Post-Punk and US Latinidad by Richard T. Rodríguez, 2022, which takes up the likes of Siouxsie and Bauhaus by way of the global south.

Also—obvs. there's more than just anglophone sources!

(Gah. Way to put a typo in the thread's opening tweet, Alex. Sorry.)

I also want to give a shoutout to Graceless: A Journal of the Radical Gothic (2011), a zine that only lasted 1.5 issues, but which made very serious efforts at politicizing goth in self-aware, ethical, and informed ways.

combustionbooks.org/downloads/grac…

Over at @TheAegisArchive, I help manage a nonprofit collection of 1500+ goth zines and primary documents. We will definitely collect an anthology at some point.

For convenience and posterity, I reformatted this thread with links over in r/goth reddit.com/r/goth/comment…

(Misspelled Claire's name. Sorry!)