Exciting News: I taught a class on heavy metal music for the first time!
Obligatory note: All of the following is my own opinion and is not a reflection of my employer. All views on this post and this blog are my own personal and individual speech.
Doors open
Check out this companion playlist I made — because you know I did.
Those first few years of teenagehood bring a lot for anyone. I was a loser and an outcast long before I got into heavy metal. By the time I was listening to “Lunchbox” by Marilyn Manson — an anti-bullying anthem, if not rhetorically what most would prefer — I’d been experiencing bullying in school for as long as I could remember. I was quiet and shy. I liked to make up stories. I was too feminine from the jump. I’d become fat, and never really ashamed of it despite those who would try to shame me for it. I was into a lot of the same things that my peers were into — the same trading card games, video games, and television shows — except I never had the coolest cards, the latest consoles or games, and I couldn’t reliably keep up with the latest episodes or even complete shows that had been out for a while.
I have a very strong memory of being called back from the fence around the playground in elementary school. A very reasonable thing for a teacher to do. But I don’t remember teachers ever asking me why I was out by the fence alone. They never asked why I played alone. And as I grew up and began peeking out of the door of the closet my teachers would turn a blind eye to the bullying I’d experience — which while it was mostly not physically violent, it was always loud and obvious. It sometimes involved slurs. It involved asking me if I was the pitcher or the catcher. It involved asking me if I was a boy or a girl.
The big bully try to stick his finger in my chest
Try to tell me, tell me he’s the best
Back at home not only did I have my music, I also had access to VH1 and a hunger for any content on hard rock or heavy metal they’d air. This included Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey. I don’t know if heavy metal lives up to the promise Sam Dunn makes on its behalf when he says in the documentary that it is a “culture of outsiders.” What I do know is that I clung to the possibility of that promise for years. As I endured some godawful shit throughout my teenage years I let myself believe the heavy metal lyrics I was hearing were written for me — for people like me. As I’m sure most metalheads have endured, I continued to listen to the genre even when people around me would say, “I don’t know how you could listen to all of that screaming stuff.” Often I’d say, “Well, technically that’s growling.” They were unclear, but I got the reputation for being pedantic. A taste for “unclean” vocal stylings is a mark: “What are you so angry about?”
An agonizingly rhetorical question, which was sometimes asked more honestly — with the accusation front and center, “What do you have to be so angry about?”
My peers and friends and myself had mostly all learned to respond to someone’s agony with one-upmanship. It made it pointless to answer the question with any sincerity.
Not to mention the trap, “I’m angry because I’m in the closet.”
Not to mention the ways of describing things I didn’t know then, “I’m angry because my dad mentally and emotionally abuses me and physically intimidates me.”
Not to mention all the things besides gender dysphoria that were going unnoticed, uncared for and/or untreated because of the negligence of the grown ups in my life — including and not limited to my parents and the therapists and psychiatrists they picked for me to keep DFCS off their ass.
I was angry, and the music helped. And then Sam Dunn introduced me to another possibility — that heavy metal could and should be studied. Throughout high school I would take music appreciation classes and beg to learn more about heavy metal. I had zero skill at playing an instrument, but I made my way through two or three courses where I had to play, learn to read and write sheet music, and learn some basic music theory. I was much more interested in the cultural aspects of heavy metal than the science of the instrumentation. And the music teachers I had were comfortable being a barrier. I had two while I was in high school. The first wouldn’t consider anything heavier than Led Zeppelin for the purposes of class. Not to mention that he dismissed both country music and punk entirely — two other genres I’ve long been a fan of. The second I don’t remember considering allowing me to incorporate any metal into my instruction — with one exception. We had a “show and tell” sort of thing where we picked a song and brought it to class. I gleefully chose “Disengage” by Suicide Silence. The lyrics might not be much, but I do miss Mitch Lucker the lyricist as much as Mitch Lucker the vocalist. By the time I presented this song in class I had been living with severe suicidal ideation for years. While it can be argued that Lucker sometimes lived recklessly, I don’t know of any evidence he himself was ever suicidal. Still, his relationship with life and death — his articulation of the temporary nature of the former and the inevitability of the latter — was literally life saving to me then, and remains critical to me now.
Just be glad you know what life is
Be glad you know what life is
You know what life is
Opening band
After such little opportunity in high school, I thought my undergraduate experience would open doors. “Now I’ll be able to study heavy metal and do projects on heavy metal if I want to.” There were at least two problems with this. First: Heavy metal, by-and-large either did not fit into the prompts and assignments I would receive or were not endorsed by my professors as a focus for class projects or other assignments. Second: The student newspapers and magazines I wrote for from 2012–2017 weren’t interested in offering column inches — physical or virtual — to heavy metal album reviews, for better or worse.
Working in higher education is a continual mindfuck — and I’ll tell you why. I’m a first generation college student who started my journey in higher education at a community college. I was in a remedial math class as a junior and senior in high school taught by a Clemson art graduate who told the class once not to even consider going to community college because it was “High School 2.0.” Every time I think about this it hits me all over again as being completely bizarre. Anyway, I didn’t want to take out a loan to go to a state school (yet) so I took the grants and scholarships I cobbled together and I went to community college. There was at least one difference between the high school math classes I took with that teacher and the classes I took in “high school 2.0” — I couldn’t listen to my heavy metal — or any music — while I did my problem sets in class at community college.
I digress, working in higher education is a mindfuck because as a student I wanted to take the classes I wanted to take — and I did! I took way more special topics classes and literature classes than I needed. While I do believe those classes enriched me as much as any other class I took at community college — I also don’t think this actually matters. What I think matters is that they helped me get through. When I was slogging through math and science classes and fighting for Bs and Cs having these classes helped. When I was couch surfing to avoid going to my dad’s — these classes helped. When I was hungry because all I’d eaten all week was ramen and leftover onion rings the women who worked at the cafe on campus would give me — these classes helped. I got to take a critical thinking class and read On Bullshit and I took a Spanish language film class and got to watch movies I may have otherwise never been exposed to. I was able to take more time to read more of the Beats — and to study that era of literature and the culture around it.
Ironically, this era was much closer to my ideal of education than what I would experience when I did get my associates and transfer to a 4-year school. There is a history of higher education that supports the argument that higher education is meant to be first and foremost preparation for a future career. But there is also a twin history of higher education that supports the argument that higher education is meant to be first and foremost an opportunity for growth, exploration, and study — with minimal structure or influence from any bureaucrat or politician. Courses of study historically were decisions that individuals made for themselves under the advisement of mentors.
In my opinion the existential threat to higher education isn’t bankruptcy or irrelevance — the threat is every attempt made toward making the higher education experience a soulless, heartless march down a straight and narrow path toward graduation and a career. When we demonize the wonder of getting lost in a course catalogue and ending up in a few “unnecessary” classes — we’re losing what is great about higher education and about being lifelong learners — that there’s more to life and living than sacrificing ourselves to the capitalist system. Minimalism might be good for decluttering your living space — it is not a great way to approach higher education. Every person should have the ability to pursue higher education if they want to — and they should have the opportunity to step up to a buffet of choices and leave satiated. There is no moral superiority to taking the lean path through higher education — there is only the satisfaction of capitalism.
The idea that the worst fate for higher education is bankruptcy or irrelevance is one that should consider the lessons of The Queer Art of Failure. Halberstam writes, “Being taken seriously means missing out on the chance to be frivolous, promiscuous, and irrelevant.”
I think that in this moment of apparent crisis higher education should consider taking the detours that Halberstam has attempted to map for us. If all we have to lose is the current model of 21st century higher education — then perhaps there is no real risk.
This is of course part of what i love about classes on heavy metal music — the opportunity to be frivolous. If you read any of the 2 or 3 leading journals on heavy metal music studies you will read an academic literature that takes itself very seriously and strives for legitimacy. It leaves me to wonder if the editors of these journals fully appreciate the hilarity of the opening of “Sweet Leaf” or the entirety of the discography of Psychostick. Somewhere — assuredly — there is a scholarship and/or genealogy on fun. And almost certainly the trajectory over the last 10–24 years has not been good. I briefly flirted with the possibility of being a scholar of play — and being able to teach a class on heavy metal music i get to return to that space. play may be everything. frivolity may be everything. failure may be everything. We begin our journey as lifelong learners through play and then assume that not only can we set aside play — but that we must set aside play. I’m venturing a bit away from the main point — i am failing to maintain a narrow narrative — however it cannot be overstated that our abandoning of play is a pedagogical failure. Learning might be crucial to whatever — careers, civic health, society — but what is most important to learning is frivolity and play. If one is not willing to accept this they can at least start with accepting that most pedagogical literature of the 21st century demands space for students to fail. There may be nothing more agonizing than failing in a somber and sober environment. Make failing fun again. Making failing frivolous again. Failure is a stepping stone. Learning is iterative — projects are iterative — deadlines are bullshit.
From this detour I return now to some of the autobiographical pieces. In community college I had the opportunity to give a presentation on thrash metal — which my professor at one point misread as “trash metal” — which is hilarious and a good burn, intentional or not. The entire point of the presentation was to practice our public speaking skills. The prompt was mostly likely focused on building our skills at presenting information — I don’t think I was putting forward any arguments about thrash metal. I can’t entirely remember that it was about thrash metal — and not death metal. Though, now that I think about it — the inclusion of Obituary’s Slowly We Rot provides some pretty clear evidence. At any rate, this was to be my last undergraduate presentation on heavy metal — if my memory doesn’t fail me. Why was this? I’m prepared to take partial ownership, but I think there were at least two other factors worth considering.
The first is that heavy metal did not fit into many of the prompts and assignments I would have going forward, bizarrely. It did not always meet a certain academic rigor. Even being a communication major with a focus on journalism, it was hard to convince professors to let me do projects based around heavy metal. This was probably in part because despite the limitations of being a communication major — I wanted to do sociological — or even anthropological — studies of the subculture.
Another issue was that the student newspapers and magazines I wrote for from 2012–2017 weren’t interested in offering column inches — physical or virtual — to heavy metal album reviews, for better or worse. This was offset some by the internet — I was a major contributor to a little known heavy metal website called Metal Riot. But by the time I graduated in 2017 with my bachelors in communication with a concentration in journalism I didn’t have any leads on a job in music journalism. The field still remains mostly freelance-based. As a first generation college student with no safety net and a bunch of student loan debt — I didn’t really feel I had what I needed to launch into an earnest freelance career. I hedge here a bit because I’m sure some freelancers may wish to quibble — and that’s fine. I made my own choices.
They say you can’t dwell on the past — and I guess that’s true. Though as someone always looking for lessons from history at every level — I find myself often lost in the past, whether it be my own or someone else’s. When I went from my community college to a four year school I was very quickly drawn to women and gender studies. In my last semester of my associate’s I had participated in a speech contest — where I talked about the value of and need for gender neutral parenting. I believe I placed 4th overall in the competition. I was becoming increasingly interested in gender and sexuality. And there were classes I could take with “gender” and/or “sexuality” in the title. Not to mention that plenty of classes had a week on gender and the discussions often involved sexuality in some way.
In contrast — there were no classes on heavy metal music. There’s often the one token class on rock ’n’ roll music — a music appreciation class that I never took in college because I fully expected it to similar enough to the classes I took in high school. I will wonder what may have been different had I taken those classes, but I didn’t — ironically in no small part because I’d already taken all the literature and special topics classes mentioned before. And existence of these classes — as well as whether or not I took them — is not my point. My point is that classes on heavy metal music — from a “music appreciation” and/or an interdisciplinary approach — are exceedingly rare. I can’t confidently name a minor or concentration in heavy metal music studies anywhere — let alone a major at the associates or bachelors level. And while some fields open up at the graduate level — heavy metal music studies is not one of them. These observations are based on what’s available in the United States — and are by no means based on an encyclopedic knowledge. For those interested in playing heavy metal music — or learning about heavy metal from a music theory lens — there does seem to be more offerings than those who are interested in studying heavy metal from a social sciences lens.
And it’s not just that there are no classes. I graduated with my masters and I completed my course work for a PhD. At both of these stages I asked if it would be possible to write on or study heavy metal subculture — and at both these stages I was told it was unlikely that I would find an advisor in these areas. Maybe I shouldn’t’ve gone into the first — and only — two programs at each level that I was accepted into — but then again, we aren’t to dwell on the past.
But I kept thinking about it — and I proposed at each level — classes on heavy metal music. At neither point was I encouraged to revise my course proposals and resubmit — because there was no need for classes on heavy metal music. Where would they fit? What would they offer? Who would take them? Would enough students register? How would they fit into a degree path? Would they be part of the problem elongating the college career instead of shortening it?
In my heart it was probably fall of 2022 when I left my Phd program — after 3 years of fighting to fit — after taking some of the hardest classes of my life online — after spending 8 months of the lockdown living alone — after taking a sexuality class and thinking that I could change my research interest and not finding an advisor for this new interest — I couldn’t do it anymore. Which in a lot of ways was heart-wrenching. On the teaching side I felt like I was finally starting to get somewhere for the first time in my life. After not being able to TA more than one lecture in my master’s I’d completed a year as a teaching fellow and was in the middle of a year as a teaching associate. I’d always been told I’d be a good teacher — and now in front of me was mounting evidence. There was only one problem. To get a full-time teaching job in higher education with a livable wage you almost certainly need a PhD — and I was stalled out on my research.
All work and no play, makes me a dull boy
All work and no play, makes me a dull boy
All work and no play, makes me a dull boy
All work and no play, makes me a dull boy
So for the first time in my life I began to take a good hard look at the job market outside of whatever college or university I was attending. I got a LinkedIn premium subscription, I watched videos on writing resumes and cover letters, I went through a ton of LinkedIn Learning certificates and micro-credentials. I decided that my best fit — the fact that it was 2022/2023 notwithstanding — was to look for opportunities working in university-based LGBTQ+ Centers. This is where the bulk of my professional experience was up to this point — even if it was as an undergraduate and graduate student assistant. I would occasionally apply for other jobs in higher education — especially as my timeline was running out and I needed an out from my PhD program. I also applied to some nonprofit positions. I didn’t have any luck in either of these areas. I learned a lot during this process — and always teaching was on my mind. Occasionally it would come up in the interview and I was always honest about it — if I had the opportunity I would love to continue teaching. Yes, my staff position would be my top priority, but being in the classroom is an important and invaluable way to connect with students. I can’t remember now if I ever brought up an interest in teaching a class on heavy metal music during these interviews. I likely kept it to queer studies and gender studies — the “relevant” academic areas — and areas I am genuinely interested in teaching in.
Being on the job market is it’s own kind of research. I’m fascinated that while I applied all over the country — and to all different types of institutions — the ones where I had interviews were at public schools in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Arizona. When I started on the job market if someone had asked me if I’d ever consider moving to Utah I likely would’ve said no. At the very least I would’ve said I couldn’t imagine myself moving to and living in the state. That’s the funny thing about life. One night as I’m doing a before-bed check of job boards I see a school in Utah is hiring an LGBT Resource Center Program Manager. Thinking to myself that I’d never actually have to make the decision of whether or not to move to Utah — I applied for the job.
Headliner
I really think that — for better or worse — I have learned a lifetime’s worth of things in the short time that I’ve lived in Utah. One invaluable mantra was taught to me by my best friend and sister: The path is the point. I have spent my entire life — literally since elementary school — agonizing over making the right choices. Not just leading up to the choices that had to be made — or ignored — but constantly wondering about the could’ve-should’ve-would’ves of everything all the time. So to have this idea to use to ground myself — the path is the point — has been very meaningful and very helpful to me. Not that I am unscathed. Not that I’m not angry, bitter, and scared — I am all of these things and more — but I can choose to believe that for all of it I am on the right path.
And when the skeptic in me goes looking for evidence of my being on the right path one of the places I turn to is being able to teach a class on heavy metal music. It’s impossible to be able to predict — let alone control — the future. This is one of the things I’m working on letting go of. Through taking a leap — and taking a risk — I have arguably landed myself out of the frying pan and into the fire, so to speak. But it is not all darkness. It is not all bad. As a teacher, mentor, and advisor I am making a difference. “Visibility is a trap” Foucault wrote. And I think now we are all seeing the truth of this. Even given these hard truths — I see plainly the benefit my presence has. Both because of the lived experiences I have walked through the world with and because of the beliefs and values I continue to cultivate within myself.
When I was working, studying, and teaching at schools with research designations there was no apparent value in offering a class on heavy metal music. Nor had I made a compelling enough case for being provided the opportunity to prove the value of offering a class on heavy metal music — assuming there could’ve been a case compelling enough. At my current institution my teaching interests are valued and given space.
Whatever the future holds — and no matter the size or significance of the footnote — one thing will remain for me. I’ve been able to teach a class on heavy metal music. I’ve been slowly learning more and more recently about inner child work. Even more recently, and relatedly, I’ve been learning about internal family systems work. Being able to teach a class on heavy metal music is very healing for a younger version of me. For every time she was told to listen to happier music. For every time she was told “It’s just noise” or “It’s just screaming” or someone turned it off after letting her believe that she would be able to choose the music — being able to teach this class has in a small way helped me to help my inner child be seen.
I fell in love with the darkest parts
Standing on the side of the wild at heart
I plucked a feather off a crow so I could fly
Since I was 13 years old I’ve had my fist to the sky
We live in an era of great fear and concern about what is different, deviant, and unknown. Despite this, there are still countless roads to heavy metal music fandom — I know from a lifetime of being a metalhead — and I saw it from my students’ stories. Students’ should have the opportunity to learn more about what they’re passionate about in the classroom. In my first semester teaching heavy metal I focused on the 1990s explosion of heavy metal music fandom and the sociological and political lead-ins and implications. There are countless threads to pull on however: One could focus solely on the Birmingham, UK scene; the 1980’s and satanic panic; the global embrace of heavy metal music; women in heavy metal music; queerness and heavy metal music; or focus on an number of genres or scenes from around the world and from the 1970s to today.
I have said to anyone who will listen that if this is the only time I get to teach a class on heavy metal music — then I could be happy. But if I get to teach 100 more iterations that cover all the variations above and more — I’d be more fulfilled as a teacher than I could’ve ever dreamed.
You didn’t come this far to just get this far
