Paul Watson’s posts tagged “Gothic”

Screened in 2018 as part of a night celebrating 'Gothic' in art, literature and, of course, music this is a compilation of archive BBC performances from many of the stalwarts of the goth scene - Siouxsie and The Banshees, Bauhaus, The Cure, Depeche Mode, Killing Joke, The Sisters of Mercy, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - as well as a couple of later entrants - PJ Harvey, Marilyn Manson.

It is true that I am a sucker for goth-flavoured radical left hot takes on pretty much any subject, but I think it works particulary well in Greenaway's book as it is an outlook well-placed to grapple with how utopia necessarily needs to walk hand in hand with the bleakness of our current plight. Because utopian thinking is not about escapism, it is not naive and it is not blind to how bad things actually are. It is the other interlocutor in dialectical opposition to the abyss we're on the precipice of and without it, we'd be lost.

We will be looking for essays on this theme for inclusion in the volume in the near future. We’ll also be hosting an Ethical Gothic Symposium to share ideas and develop papers for the issue. We look forward to finding out more about others whose research might address these concerns (including writers).