Turbulent Times: The British Jewish Community Today
Co-authored with Ben Gidley
Continuum, July 2010
The first book-length study of contemporary British Jewry , Turbulent Times: The British Jewish Community Today examines the changing nature of the British Jewish community and its leadership since 1990.
Keith Kahn-Harris and Ben Gidley contend that there has been a shift within Jewish communal discourse from a strategy of security, which emphasized Anglo-Jewry’s secure British belonging and citizenship, to a strategy of insecurity, which emphasizes the dangers and threats Jews face individually and communally. This shift is part of a process of renewal in the community that has led to something of a ‘Jewish renaissance’ in Britain.
Addressing key questions on the transitions in the history of Anglo-Jewish community and leadership, and tackling the concept of the ‘new antisemitism’, this important and timely study addresses the question: how has UK Jewry adapted from a shift from monoculturalism to multiculturalism?
Reviews, interviews and articles on ‘Turbulent Times’
[NB: if you know of any more then please get in touch]
Interview with the authors in the Jewish Chronicle, July 28 2010
Short article in British Religion in Numbers, July 2010
Article promoting the book by Keith Kahn-Harris in Ekklesia, July 2010
Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge
Berg Publishers, December 2006
Extreme metal–one step beyond heavy metal–can appear bizarre or terrifying to the uninitiated. Extreme metal musicians have developed an often impenetrable sound that teeters on the edge of screaming, incomprehensible noise. Extreme metal circulates on the edge of mainstream culture within the confines of an obscure ’scene’, in which members explore dangerous themes such as death, war and the occult, sometimes embracing violence, neo-fascism and Satanism.
In the first book-length study of extreme metal, Keith Kahn-Harris draws on first-hand research to explore the global extreme metal scene. He shows how the scene is a space in which members creatively explore destructive themes, but also a space in which members experience the everyday pleasures of community and friendship.
Including interviews with band members and fans, from countries ranging from the UK and US to Israel and Sweden, Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge demonstrates the power and subtlety of an often surprising and misunderstood musical form.
Reviews of ‘Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge’
[NB: if you know of any more then please get in touch]
Circle of Destruction, February 2009
Journal of Popular Music Studies, Volume 20, Issue 2, Pages 194–207
Popular Music,Volume 27, Issue 2, May 2008, Pages 338-9
Nordicum- Mediterraneum, Vol 3, No 1, March 2008
Xtrememusic.org 2008
Zombiegirlsonline 2008
Metal Injection 11th July 2007
Decibel Magazine (US) July 2007
Times Higher Education Supplement March 16th 2007
Copyright Volume! 5/2 2006 [in French]



