Education: PhD, University of Maryland; MA, University of Maryland; BA, Howard University
Research Interests:
Dr. Hopkinson’s research interests include the arts; Black geographies; gender, media and cultural histories; ethnography; and Washington, DC.
Professional Experience:
Dr. Natalie Hopkinson is a fellow of the Interactivity Foundation and author, most recently of A Mouth is Always Muzzled: Six Dissidents, Five Continents and the Art of Resistance (February 2018, New Press), which the Independent Publishers’ Association’s awarded the 2018 “Spirit Award” gold prize for demonstrating the “courage and creativity necessary to take chances, break new ground, and bring about change, not only to the world of publishing, but to our society;” the Hong Kong Free Press named Muzzled a top Human Rights book and it earned critical acclaim in the New Yorker, NPR, Kirkus magazine, Publisher’s Weekly, Washington Post, and Chicago Tribune. Her previous books of essays on culture include Deconstructing Tyrone: A New Look at Black Masculinity in the Hip-Hop Generation with Natalie Y. Moore (2006, Cleis Press) and Go-Go Live: The Musical Life and Death of a Chocolate City (2012, Duke University Press.) A former staff writer, editor and media/culture critic at the Washington Post and The Root, she earned her PhD at the University of Maryland-College Park.
Recent academic book chapters and articles include:
(2018) With Somani, I. “Color, Caste and the Public Sphere: A Study of Black Journalists Who Entered Network Newsrooms from 1994-2014.” Journalism Practice.
(2018) With Myers T.K. “Afrocentricity of the Whole: Bringing Women and LGBTQIA Voices in from the Theoretical Margins.” In: Langmia K. (ed) Black/Africana Communication Theory. Palgrave Macmillan.
(forthcoming) “Beyond ‘Cats & Dogs’: A Geopolitical and Cultural Analysis of Guyana’s ‘Mashramani’ Independence Celebration.” Presses universitaires de la Méditerranée.
Under Review
“Fluorescent Flags: Black Power, Publicity, and American Counternarratives in Go-Go Street Posters in the 1980s.”
With Simons-Roberts, S. “Tweeting Black-ish to Make Black Lives Matter: How the interplay of traditional and new media set the agenda for public debate about racial violence and inequality.” Invited chapter in Media, Myth and Millennials: Critical Perspectives on Race and Culture. Edited by Chris Campbell and Loren Coleman. Lexington Books.
