Heavy Metal, Gender and Sexuality

Florian Heesch is a musicologist who completed his doctoral thesis on operas and Swedish literature at the University of Gothenburg in 2006. He researched and lectured at several German universities, mainly in the fields of rock music, music and Norse mythology, popular music and queer theory. In 2013 he became professor of popular music and gender studies at the University of Siegen, Germany. Niall Scott is Senior Lecturer in Ethics at the University of Lancashire in Preston. His primary research interest is in philosophy and heavy metal, and he is one of the founding members of the current metal studies movement. He also works in the fields of cultural theory, bioethics and theology. Together with Rob Fisher and ID.net, he put together the first conference on heavy metal in Salzburg in 2008, where he first met Florian Heesch. Niall is editor of Helvete, A Journal of Black Metal Theory and co-editor, with Professor Karl Spracklen, of the journal Metal Music Studies (Intellect). He is currently the chair of the International Society for Metal Music Studies (ISMMS), and has published widely and spoken internationally on heavy metal, politics, philosophy and cultural theory.