From the Land of the Ice and Snow: The Female Gender in Finnish Heavy Metal
17 May 2017, 6:00 pm–8:00 pm

Event Information
Location
-
UCL, Drayton House B06, 30 Gordon St, London WC1H 0AX
Speaker: Amanda DiGioia (UCL SSEES)
The objective of my PhD study is to examine gender as
a part of the complex web of cultural connections between Finnish women and
heavy metal.
Looking at gender as performance via an ethnography of Finnish
female heavy metal music fans will serve to illustrate the Finnish metal
scene’s expectations of people based on their gender. Heavy metal academics,
such as Keith Kahn-Harris, the British author of Extreme Metal: Music and
Culture on the Edge, have gone as far to say that “heavy metal is almost
celebrated as one of the country’s major cultural exports” (Baird, 2013, n.
pag). Due to the genre’s popularity, this will also shape a larger
understanding of gender in Finnish society. This study of gender in the Finnish
heavy metal music scene, upon its completion, will also show what constructions
surrounding the female gender are or are not adopted from broader Finnish
culture.
This presentation will focus on the background gender studies in metal music
studies, as well as the background of Finnish heavy metal music in metal music
studies, before closing with my PhD work plans.
Amanda DiGioia is a first year PhD Student at SSEES. Her research interests
include gender theory, heavy metal music, and horror studies. Her first book, Childbirth
and Parenting in Horror Texts: The Marginalized and the Monstrous,
(featured in the ‘Alternativity
and Marginalization’ series
through Emerald Group Publishing) will be released this fall.
A seminar hosted by
the UCL SSEES Social Sciences & Arts and Humanities Research Student Seminars.
Student Coordinators: Peter Braga and Liisa Tuhkanen
Image: Finnish band Nightwish at Tuska Open Air 2013 By Cecil (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons