Last year (2014) I contributed a chapter to the academic anthology “Pop Pagans: Paganism and Popular Music.” That chapter, “The Darker Shade of Pagan: The Emergence of Goth,” explores the cross-pollination of the Goth subculture, and the modern Pagan religious movement.

“The late 1970s and early ’80s spawned an insular and self-consciously Pagan folk music scene, centered around festivals and conventions, but that wasn’t the only expression of a modern Pagan music to emerge. “Goth,” a unique musical subculture that developed during the post-punk era in Britain, provided a parallel creative environment.”

The me who wrote this chapter, well over a year before it came out in print, seems like a very different person today, and I’m still amazed that I managed to write something that passed academic muster. I’m quite proud of the achievement, and I hope to publish the entire chapter online at some point in the future.