Teen Gothic

Since my first time going to Sabbat back in 2022 to the newer Modern Wav events I am still genuinely surprised on how big the SD Goth Scene, I've made so many friends and while not Goth I enjoy everything from the Music to the Events to The People.

Hi all! Below is a thread I wrote on Twitter this morning. A friend mentioned I should share it here, so voilà.

Someone recently asked about academic views of goth culture. This post compiles a few dozen sources on exactly this topic. My list doesn't contain individual academic articles/chapters, nor does it cover anything non-anglophone, but it's still plenty to keep you busy.

Ready to fill ye olde bookshelf?

The Gothic: A Very Short Introduction – Nick Groom, 2012

– [a crash course on the gothic, with a clear path from classical-era goths to modern subculture; great context, if mostly focused on older stuff]

Goth: Identity, Style and Subculture — Paul Hodkinson, 002

– [a foundational text, as much about methodology as goth history/music; one vital thing to remember about studies like this is that the context, perspective, and interpretation that a scholar wants to gain regarding a culture is almost always different than the investment, insider knowledge, and reassurance that members of the culture seek when reading about themselves]

Goth Culture: Gender, Sexuality and Style — Dunja Brill, 2008

– [arguably the best ethnography of modern-ish goth culture]

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]

Goth's Dark Empire — Carol Siegel, 2005

– [another ethnography, focused more on American scenes, with perhaps too much emphasis on BDSM; this one is often disliked in goth circles]

Goths, Gamers, & Grrrls: Deviance and Youth Subcultures — Ross Haenfler, 2010

– [puts goth in context with other groups, verging on a post-subcultural approach]

Italian Goth Subculture: Kindred Creatures and Other Dark Enactments in Milan, 1982-1991 — Simone Tosoni & Emanuela Zuccalà, 2020

– [a hidden gem of granular history/sociology concerning one Italian city's scene over a single decade]

Gothic Music: The Sounds of the Uncanny — Isabella van Elferen, 2012

– [a literary & filmic approach to modern, mostly Euro goth music]

Goth Music: From Sound to Subculture — Isabella van Elferen & Jeffrey Weinstock, 2015

– [a continuation, concerned more with contemporary aesthetics than the music's history]

The Evolution of Goth Culture: the Origins and Deeds of the New Goths — Karl & Beverley Spracklen, 2018

– [a solid combination of history & ethnography]

A Kiss Across the Ocean: Transatlantic Intimacies of British Post-Punk and US Latinidad — Richard T. Rodríguez, 2022

– [a unique book that takes up the likes of Siouxsie and Bauhaus by way of the global south, and vice-versa]

Goth: Undead Subculture — edited by Lauren Goodlad & Michael Bibby, 2007

– [a grab bag of scholarly & not-quite-scholarly views on all things goth]

Gothic: Transmutations of Horror in Late Twentieth-Century Art — edited by Christoph Grunenberg, 1997

– [another grab bag with some good bits; blurs the goth/ic line in interesting but perhaps frustrating ways]

And these are just the actual books! Dissertations and master's theses exist, of which the most important is The 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 Claire Nally (2019) and my own Assimilate: A Critical History of Industrial Music (2013). Post-punk and Joy Division open up another whole can of worms. Given this, 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, Convulsion, & others. Most zines are primary artifacts, and so they're not concerned with critical questions. I do want to give a shoutout though 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. (Of interest: I help manage the Aegis Archive, a nonprofit collection of 1500+ goth zines and primary documents. We will definitely collect an anthology at some point.)

It's worth mentioning that 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, but the first few are at least worth checking out.

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.

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: A Connoisseur's Guide to Dark Culture (2002)

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. Folks in this Reddit group surely know him. His books include:

Gothic Rock Black Book, 1988

Gothic Rock: All You Ever Wanted to Know… but Were Too Gormless to Ask, 1991

Hex Files: The Goth Bible, 1997

21st Century Goth, 2002

Music to Die For: The International Guide to the Last Great Underground Scene, 2009

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, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, and Bauhaus.

Some of these are by knowledgeable 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 good. Dunno.

Anyhow, I hope this helps somebody to find out more about academic, sub/cultural, literary, and musicological approaches to goth. If you have more to add, please expand this little bibliography!

Books that are inspired by music, the movement, or just have a good story where the main characters like goth rock music.

Hi. I'm starting to get into goth subculture, and I would like to know what the best gothic books are to read to learn about the gothic subculture.

I was just visiting a book store the other day and noticed a lot of mediocre books on goth that still spread misinformation even though there good books that people can still buy. What are books you consider good ones and ones that's spread misinformation? This also helps newcomers avoid books and at least provides of collective sense of better stuff out there.

Conflating architecture, gothic, all things dark as goth or goth alone, a poor analysis of the music history and claims of the subculture predating the music along with conflating dark genres as extensions of goth and a strong overemphasis of the fashion and lifestyle are a few traits of misinformation books.

Good goth books imo (some are out of print):

Gothic Rock Black Book

Hex Files

Goth chic

21st Century Goth

Goth: Undead Subculture

​

Misinformation books imo (some of these are still in stores or in stock online):

Goth bible

What is goth? by Voltaire

Gothic Charm School