Samantha Holland is Senior Research Fellow at Leeds Beckett University, UK. Her work is interdisciplinary: her educational background includes English Literature, Sociology and Cultural Studies. Her first monograph Alternative Femininities. Body, Age & Identity (2004) was at the forefront of the current interest in ageing and subcultures. Since then she has published two other books: Remote Relationships in a Small World (Peter Lang, 2008, edited) and Pole Dancing, Empowerment & Embodiment (2010). Her research interests are gender, leisure, non-mainstream subcultures and ageing, utilising feminist, ethnographic qualitative methods. She is currently the Acting Editor of Journal of Gender Studies, and book review editor for Loisir/Leisure.
Karl Spracklen is Professor of Leisure Studies at Leeds Beckett University, UK. His research encompasses Sociology of Leisure, Leisure Studies, Leisure Theory, Cultural Studies and Popular Music Studies. He is a world-class academic in Metal Music Studies and the editor of the journal Metal Music Studies. He has published over eighty books, edited collections, papers, book chapters and other outputs. Karl works across disciplines and subject fields, using history and philosophy to make sense of sociology and cultural studies.
Amanda DiGioia is currently a doctoral student at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, UK. Amanda’s thesis examines women in the Finnish heavy metal music scene. Her research interests include horror texts, feminist theory and Finnish culture and society. Amanda's work has been featured in Metal Music Studies, Horror Studies, and Fan Phenomena: Game of Thrones.
