2nd Online Symposium on Goth Music and Subculture

This panel explores varied goth music, identities, and aesthetics across cultures and generations. Moderator and video artist, Jose Luis Benavides will open the discussion by reflecting on millennial connections to Latin American industrial music, EBM, and hip hop, embodied in his avant-rap persona Luigi—described by UK blogger Lady Gothique as a “queer, Latino noir-scape.” Our distinguished guest, Richard T. Rodríguez will present insights from “A Kiss Across the Ocean” (Duke University Press, 2022) examining the deep cultural exchange between British post-punk (precursor to modern goth music) and U.S. Latinx communities. McNair Scholars, Amanda Coburn, Mary Oberg, and Bex Phillips will also share their artistic research. Phillips will delve into Afro-Goth fashion, and their Black identity via social media. Coburn will explore intersectional feminism and the legacy of witch hunts in their drawing practice. Literature student Mary Oberg will present a queer reading of classical vampire fiction, probing why vampirism remains a potent metaphor in queer media today. Together, the panel highlights how gothic subcultures open much needed space for intersectional and intergenerational identity work.

Presenters Bios
Richard T. Rodríguez is Professor of English at the University of California, Riverside. He specializes in Latina/o/x literary and cultural studies, film and visual culture, and gender and sexuality studies, and holds additional interests in transnational cultural studies, labor studies, popular music studies, and comparative ethnic studies. He is author of “Next of Kin: The Family in Chicano/a Cultural Politics” (Duke University Press 2009), which won the 2011 National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies Book Award. His book “A Kiss Across the Ocean: Transatlantic Intimacies of British Post-Punk and U.S. Latindidad” (Duke University Press 2022) was an honorable mention in the category of best LGBTQ+ Themed Books for the Empowering Latino Futures’s International Latino Book Awards. His post-punk show, "Dr. Ricky on the Radio,” can be heard weekly on KUCR.

Amanda Coburn, Mary Oberg, and Bex Phillips are undergraduate researchers at Idaho State University and current members of the Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program.

Session Chair/Moderator Bio
Jose Luis Benavides is an Assistant Professor of Digital Media at Idaho State University, with past exhibitions and screenings of their work at Paul Robeson Galleries of Rutgers University-Newark; the Feminist Border Arts Film Festival at the University Art Museum of New Mexico State University; and QueerCine International Film Festival in Vienna, to name a recent few. They have also held solo exhibitions and solo screenings at Vanderbilt University’s Engine for Art, Democracy, and Justice; the Chicago Art Department; the International Surgical Science Museum; the Nightingale Cinema; and Terremoto magazine’s La Postal. Their creative research has been awarded grants from the Terra Foundation; Ignite Fund; Illinois Humanities; and Propeller Fund; among others.