Jörg Scheller published a new article in the edited volume “Meta/Metal. Open Questions in Metal Studies“. “Disposable Hero? Heavy Metal as Peacebuilding” is connected to our research project’s interest in popular culture as a – possible – site for (implicit) peacebuilding. The article argues that heavy metal can not only enable catharsis but can also actively contribute to ‘positive peace’ (i.e., to more than just the absence of violence) in (at least) four ways: 1) by offering a set of apocalyptic symbols that allows for the coding of critique, thus circumventing censorship, 2) by creating relations of resonance in general, and specifically between people with potentially conflicting ideopolitical identities, 3) by making silenced or downplayed conflicts transparent and thus negotiable in the first place, 4) by providing an aesthetic that does not sugarcoat conflict and violence but addresses them through the “mimesis of the hardened and alienated” (Adorno). In the conclusion, it is argued that heavy metal points towards a seemingly paradoxical non-alienated relation of resonance to, or rather: with alienation, and that this relation can be interpreted as a precondition for the possibility of peace.

The article can be downloaded free of charge here.