Season of the Witch: The Book of Goth
Described as: “a panoramic view of the musical culture of the UK in the 1980s” by Greil Marcus, SEASON OF THE WITCH: THE BOOK OF GOTH tells the story of the musical genre that paralleled the rise and fall of Margaret Thatcher from May 1979 to November 1990 without ever speaking it’s name. Unleashed by the subversive forces of punk, groundbreaking bands such as Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division and The Cure found a way to distil the dissonance and darkness of the new decade into a new form of music. Forty years after its inception, Cathi Unsworth tells the story of how Goth was shaped by the politics of an era – the miners’ strikes, privatisation, the Troubles and the coming of AIDS – spread across the world, sparking the imagination of a generation of alienated youths and creating an enduring counter-culture that steadfastly refuses to give up the ghost.
Bio:
Cathi Unsworth began her writing career at the music paper Sounds at the age of 19 in 1987 and has since written on music, books, film and the stranger areas of pop culture for Melody Maker, The Guardian, The Financial Times and Fortean Times as well as working as an editor on Bizarre and Purr magazines. She is the author of six pop-cultural noir novels including Bad Penny Blues (Strange Attractor Press, 2021); and the co-author of Defying Gravity, the life and times of punk icon Jordan Mooney (Omnibus Press, 2018). Season Of The Witch: The Book of Goth (Nine Eight Books, 2023) is the culmination of a life’s fascination with Gothic music, its origins and influences. For more, see cathiunsworth.co.uk
Curated and Hosted by
Dr. Amy Hale is an Atlanta based writer, curator and critic, ethnographer and folklorist speaking and writing about esoteric history, art, culture, women and Cornwall. She is the author of Ithell Colquhoun: Genius of the Fern Loved Gully (Strange Attractor 2020) and is currently working on several Colquhoun related manuscripts. She is also the editor of Essays on Women in Western Esotericism: Beyond Seeresses and Sea Priestesses (Palgrave 2022). She has contributed gallery texts and essays for a number of institutions including Tate, Camden Arts Centre, Art UK, Arusha Galleries, Heavenly Records and she is a curator and host for the Last Tuesday Society lecture series.
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