Our friends at Metal Sucks let us know that there’s going to be a black metal theory symposium at Public Assembly in Brooklyn on December 12. Some of the papers being presented include:

“The Counter-Reformation in Stone and Metal: Spiritual Substances”

“Black Confessions and Absu-lution”

“The light that illuminates itself, the dark that soils itself: blackened notes from Schelling’s underground”

“BAsileus philosoPHOrum METaloricum”

There also be a showing of two artists.

This makes sense to a degree. Black metal is by its very nature, full of intelligent elitists. And it’s kind of clever the way two of the above papers have band names in the titles. On the other hand, really? We’re not anti-intellectualists at Metal Insider, not by a long shot. But hearing six hours of smug discourse on why an artist uses darkness as a metaphor and how their country’s nationalistic politics informs their work sounds like the opposite of how I’d want to spend an afternoon. It might be fun to show up in a Disturbed t-shirt and keep interrupting the presentations to ask when the bands start, though. If you’re interested, you can find out more information here.