On September 27th, the University College of London is to play host to a new conference; Ultimate Outsider Genre: Metal, Diversity, Activism. This free event is convened by Dr Daniel Lukes (co-editor of Black Metal Rainbows) and Dr Riitta Valijarvi, (Associate Professor [Teaching] at UCL SSEES). It will bring together academic and artistic people, to discuss extreme metal in relation to various issues from feminist/queer theory to environmentalism, sociology to aesthetics, activism, community-building, and more. Keep reading below for further details.
Register for the event here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ultimate-outsider-genre-metal-diversity-activism-tickets-901395747947?aff=oddtdtcreator
In times of widening economic inequality, encroaching climate crisis, rising fascism, and the horrors of war – extreme metal music has emerged as a vital site of political engagement and resistance. Over the last decade or so, the field of extreme metal (death and black metal, doom and sludge, industrial, and noise, etc) has demonstrated a renewed sense of diversity, inclusion, and political consciousness, especially from left-wing, antifascist/antiracist/anticapitalist positions across the globe. The political anger and anti-authoritarian impulse animating metal since its beginnings (Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Napalm Death, Sepultura) is now undergoing a renaissance, opening up exciting new pathways for activism and solidarity.
Ultimate Outsider Genre: Metal, Diversity, Activism is an interdisciplinary hybrid conference bringing together scholars, writers, and musicians, for a day of dialogue on how extreme metal music is meeting today’s world on fire. From a variety of perspectives, panels will discuss and strategize how extreme metal can be a vehicle for raising consciousness and creating social change, towards a politics of inclusion, care, and anticapitalist futures.
The keynote speaker will be Professor Patricia MacCormack, author of The Ahuman Manifesto: Activisms for the End of the Anthropocene, and her talk will be titled “Queer Cunt Chaos Black Magick Contra Nationalist Pseudo Occultism.” You don’t want to miss this! The full speaker line-up will be announced soon.
The event will be free, and in person, with the option of joining remotely. See event page (https://www.ucl.ac.uk/european-institute/events/2024/sep/ultimate-outsider-genre-metal-diversity-activism-ucl-music-futures) and the Facebook event page (https://facebook.com/events/s/ultimate-outsider-genre-metal-/481508918169600/). The conference will be followed by a concert at a venue TBC featuring Karnstein, Absent Signifier, and Rozklad, raising funds for Metal For Good.
Ultimate Outsider Genre is convened by Dr Daniel Lukes (co-editor of Black Metal Rainbows) and Dr Riitta Valijarvi, (Associate Professor [Teaching] at UCL SSEES). Please contact them for more information at daniel.lukes@gmail.com and r.valijarvi@ucl.ac.uk