Abstract: This dissertation uses a comparative case study of two grassroots music scenes—the folk music and heavy metal scenes in Toronto—to examine gender relations among cultural producers. I collect data using semi-structured interviews with 63 field actors, 70 instances of participant-observation, and discourse analysis of key public texts. Building on Bourdieu’s field theory, I argue that gender organizes fields of cultural production, including (1) the field’s economy of symbolic capital (2) the connection between field and habitus and (3) the spaces where musicians develop the embodied cultural capital required for music careers.
The first paper shows that field organization impacts the extent to which field members’ gendered dispositions produce symbolic capital, or reputation. Two features of cultural fields shape whether symbolic capital is gendered: the degree to which symbolic capital is institutionalized, and the level of symbolic boundary-drawing in the field. The metal field’s low institutionalization of symbolic capital and high boundaries foreground gender as a basis of symbolic capital, while the folk field’s high institutionalization of symbolic capital and low boundary-drawing reduce the extent to which gender matters.
The second paper situates gender as central to relationship between field and habitus. Participants in the metal field develop a metalhead habitus that privileges gendered practices centered on individual dominance and status competition, while the folkie habitus encourages gendered practices centered on caring, emotionality, and community-building. These gendered habitus support different working conventions: volunteer-based non-profit organizations in folk, and individual entrepreneurship in metal. The gendered habitus also supports different stylistic conventions: guitar virtuosity in the metal field, and participatory music-making in folk.
The third paper finds gendered access to the learning spaces where musicians develop performance capital, a form of embodied cultural capital denoting the instrumental and interpersonal skills required to perform music. Folk’s learning spaces are largely public and do not require social networks for access, while heavy metal’s learning spaces are private and centered on male-dominated friendship networks from which women are often excluded. These different learning spaces creates gendered patterns of access to the embodied cultural capital required to develop a music career.

Abstract: Given the ever-growing popularity of music in daily life, it is of the utmost importance to understand how it influences affect, cognition, and behavior, especially given the violence of certain genres of music. The present study was designed to investigate the relationship between music and behavior, specifically to examine how the lyrics and background music interact to influence affective hostility and aggressive behavior. Data were collected from a sample of 168 students (61% Female; MAge = 19.24, SD = 2.470) at a large, private, Midwestern university to investigate this relationship. The music was manipulated by randomly assigning the participant to listen to one of four versions of a song. These versions included the match of either antisocial or prosocial lyrics with heavy metal or calm background music.
Although there was no significant main effect of the lyrical content on participant’s aggressive behavior as hypothesized, there was a significant main effect of the lyrical content on an individual’s level of affective hostility F(4,159) = 8.818, p < .001, η 2</super> = .186. Specifically, pairwise comparisons showed antisocial lyrics resulted in a higher level of hostility as compared to the prosocial lyrics. This pattern suggests that music influences an individual’s affective hostility, but counter to previous research, music does not necessarily alter aggressive behavior. The relationship between music and aggression requires further investigation in order to determine whether music does in fact influence behavior, including potential moderators of this relationship.

Abstract: Heavy metal has a long and controversial history. One of the many things it has been blamed for is causing mental illness among its listeners. However, is the music to be blamed or are there other factors coming into play? Numerous studies have been done on various aspects of heavy metal such as its link to violence, but few have been done on mental health within the community. This paper replicated a French study examining levels of depression and anxiety within the community. Forty three participants, all active metal listeners, completed a survey examining various factors such as employment status and education levels, and completed the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). Like the French study, it found that participants had generally low levels of depression and anxiety, but high levels were linked to outside factors. Hopefully, this will help open the floor for more valuable research on the community.

Abstract: This thesis discusses the nature of music’s impact on identity, subjectivity, and the self. To better understand music’s role in promoting hope and resilience, I pinpoint how heavy, intense, and highly emotive music applied over distinct listening practices impacts the regulation of affect and self-destructive impulses in individuals who suffer from trauma, mental illness, or self-destructive behavior. This research also investigates the characteristic of intensity often found in heavy music that seems (despite intuition) to ease negative or painful emotions, circumvent impulses to self-harm, and propel one to positive action.
Of particular interest to this project are the ways both heavy and non-genre specific music listeners use various listening strategies in the regulation and modulation of negative affect and emotion. Specifically highlighted are the three strategies defined by Saarikallio (2008) in the Music in Mood Regulation (MMR) scale of using music to cope with negative mood states: Diversion, where music is used to distract from negative thoughts and feelings, Solace, where music is used for comfort, acceptance, and understanding when feeling sad or troubled, and Discharge, where anger or sadness are released through music.
Through review and analysis of existing literature, qualitative research, and in-depth case studies, this thesis illuminates the ways musically-afforded emotion-regulation strategies allow subjects to meet, shape, and transform their difficult experiences by establishing hope and resilience that strengthens one’s ontological security and sense of self.

Abstract: Two centuries-old mask traditions native to Austria and Bavaria enjoy ongoing popularity due to a creative mingling of old and new elements (heavy metal music and fireworks alongside hand-carved wooden masks and birch rod switches). The Krampus is the menacing companion of St. Nikolaus, who visits children on December 5 and 6, although nowadays groups of Krampusse may appear alone. The Perchten, who are associated with the magical female folk-figure Perchta, appear on January 5 and the week before. While the Perchten and Krampusse represent distinct traditions, their history has intersected at various points, and their contemporary manifestations share many elements, including a movement towards a “modern” aesthetic and the employment of such resources as tourist publicity and the internet to promote their appearances, educate the public, and network with each other. While the house visit was formerly the primary setting for these masked figures (or mummers), today it is the public parade.
These parades, while rooted in and resembling conventional display-custom performances marked by a static division between performer and spectator, actually consist of a kind of fluid, interactive ritual theater in which the partially improvised, partially scripted performances of masked figures and the responses of spectators shape one another. Contemporary manifestations of Perchten and Krampus traditions will be explored in light of the ongoing cultural dialogue between performers and non-performers who seek to define and interpret the tradition, and the interplay of academic and popular discourses surrounding invented tradition, Folklorismus (folklorism) and Rücklauf (feedback), and the nature of authenticity. Questions of cultural heritage “ownership” surface in the debates over form and meaning, while in the hands of the Perchten and Krampusse themselves, tradition emerges as an active process and collaborative artwork rather than a fixed commodity with boundaries which can be defined and navigated by outside observers.