This incisive Research Handbook investigates the complex and multifaceted field of the sociology of leisure. Expert authors explore the social meaning and purpose of leisure in an era defined by postmodernity, post-industrialism, globalization, and digitalization.The Handbook firstly reflects on the history of leisure studies, moving on to analyse its connection to post-structuralism, racism, feminism, gender, and masculinity. Chapters assess leisure in relation to marginalized ind...

This first academic collection dedicated to popular music in Leeds - developed from the work of interdisciplinary scholars, drawn from a major public museum exhibition “Sounds of Our City” and built upon contemporary research. Leeds has rich musical histories and heritage, a long tradition of vibrant music venues, nightclubs, dance halls, pubs and other sites of musical entertainment.The city has spawned crooners, folk singers, punks, post- punks, Goths, DJs, popstars, rappers and ...

Metal is a form of popular music. Popular music is a form of leisure. In the modern age, popular music has become part of popular culture, a heavily contested collection of practices and industries that construct place, belonging and power.The arrival of Donald Trump in the White House has shown that angry white men still wield huge social and cultural power in this new century. The aim of this monograph is to explore metal music - might be seen as leisure spaces that resist the no...

This edited collection explores Positive Sociology of Leisure (PSL) as a subfield relating to leisure studies, sociology of leisure, and sociology of happiness.Defined as an area of research that examines social aspects of leisure life with a focus on the optimal functioning of relationship, group, community, organization, and other social units, PSL differs from more critical forms of sociology in that its starting point is social positives.The contributions draw on a rang...

It is common to hear heavy metal music fans and musicians talk about the “metal community”. This concept, which is widely used when referencing this musical genre, encompasses multiple complex aspects that are seldom addressed in traditional academic endeavors including shared aesthetics, musical practices, geographies, and narratives. The idea of a “metal community” recognizes that fans and musicians frequently identify as part of a collective group, larger than any particular individual....

Within events management, events are commonly categorised within two axes, size and content. Along the size axis events range between the small scale and local, through major events, which garner greater media interest, to internationally significant hallmark and mega events such as the Edinburgh Festival and the Tour de France. Content is frequently divided into three forms – culture, sport or business. However, such frameworks overlook and depoliticise a significant variety of events, th...

The origins and deeds of the old Goths were constructed by Roman historians in fear of the Goth as a barbarian outsider; at the same time, the Goths were themselves the heroic subject of their own histories, constructed by their supporters as stories of their mythical origin and the deeds that led them to be rulers of their own kingdoms in post-Roman Late Antiquity. Who the old Goths were, their origins and their deeds, was a product of history, historiography and myth-making.In th...

Can activism be considered a leisure activity? Can the Occupy movement, local campaigns for change and lone acts of personal resistance be understood as events?Within the field of Events Management the content of events is generally analyzed within three categories—culture, sport or business. Such a typology can be helpful as a heuristic for interpretation and analysis within a commercial paradigm. However, this framework overlooks and depoliticizes a significant variety of events,...

Alternativity delineates those spaces, scenes, club-cultures, objects and practices in modern society that are considered to be actively designed to be counter or resistive to mainstream popular culture. The idea of the alternative in popular culture became mainstream with the rise of the counter culture in 1960s America (though there were earlier forms of alternative cultures in America and other Western countries). Alternativity is associated with marginalization, both actively pursued b...

This book draws from a rich history of scholarship about the relations between music and cities, and the global flows between music and urban experience. The contributions in this collection comment on the global city as a nexus of moving people, changing places, and shifting social relations, asking what popular music can tell us about cities, and vice versa.Since the publication of the first Sounds and the City volume, various movements, changes and shifts have amplified...

This edited collection highlights the diversity and reach of global leisure studies and global leisure theory. It explores the impact of globalization on leisure, and the sites of resistance and accommodation found in local, virtual and global leisure spaces.Unlike any other collection on leisure studies, Global Leisure and the Struggle for a Better World is truly representative of the diversity of thelarge and growing leisure scholarship across the globe. It demonstratesh...

This is the first handbook devoted entirely to leisure theory, charting the history and philosophy of leisure, theories in religion and culture, and rational theories of leisure in the Western philosophical tradition, as well as a range of socio-cultural theories from thinkers such as Adorno, Bauman, Weber and Marx. Drawing on contributions from experts in leisure studies from around the world, the four sections cover: traditional theories of leisure; rational theories of leisure; structur...