Elaborating on themes of resilience, memory, critique and metal beyond metal, this volume highlights how the development and future of metal music scholarship is predicated on the engagement with other forms of popular culture such as comics, documentaries, and popular music. Drawing from a range of theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches, Heavy Metal Studies and Popular Culture's transnational approach and rootedness in metal scholarship provides the collection with a breadth and depth that makes it a critical resource for academics and students interested in the theories and trends shaping the future of Metal Music Studies.

Introduction: Metal Beyond Metal: The Future of Metal Studies; Keith Kahn-Harris
PART I: RESILIENCE
1. Heavy Metal as Resistance; Niall Scott
2. Sentimental Comedy and the Heavy Metal Documentary; Gerd Bayer
PART II: MEMORY
3. The Ballad of Heavy Metal: The Art of Song-Writing, Production Values and Pop-Metal Crossover; Andy R. Brown
4. Same as it Never Was: Machinations of Metal and Memory; Brad Klypchak
5. Metal at the Fringe: A Historical Perspective on Puerto Rico's Underground Metal Scene; Nelson Varas-Díaz
PART III: CRITIQUE
6. Blasting Britney on the Way to Goatwhore: Identity and Authenticity among Female-identified Fans in Semi-rural North Carolina; Jamie E. Patterson
7. Powerslaves? Navigating Femininity in Heavy Metal; Jenna Kummer
PART IV: METAL BEYOND METAL
8. Genre, Scene and Ritual in Cascadian Black Metal; Anthony Thibodeau
9. Metal and Comics: Strange Bedfellows?; Colin A. McKinnon

Brenda Walter is Associate Professor of History at the Saint Louis College of Pharmacy, US. Her research examines the role of Aristotelian discourse, learned medicine, and scholastic theology in the construction of alterity and the continued influence of medieval otherness on the horror genre, black metal, and beyond.
Gabby Riches is a PhD student at Leeds Beckett University, UK. Her research examines women's participation in moshpit practices within Leeds' extreme metal scene. She is on the editorial board for Metal Music Studies. Her doctoral research has been published in the International Journal of Community Music, IASPM@Journal and Journal for Cultural Research.
Dave Snell is Research Coordinator at the Waikato Institute of Technology, New Zealand. He is the author of Bogans: An Insider's Guide to Metal, Mullets, and Mayhem and features in the documentary series Bogans. His research interests include social identity theory, communities of practice, andeveryday life.
Bryan Bardine is Associate Professor of English at the University of Dayton, US. He was the Coordinator of the Metal and Cultural Impact Conference, has given multiple papers on teaching, writing and using metal music, and his most recent research examines Gothic Literary characteristics in Death Metal music lyrics.