Associate Professor
natalie.hopkinson@howard.edu

Dr. Natalie Hopkinson is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication, Culture and Media Studies. Her work explores questions about art, history, gender, culture and media, blending scholarship and public advocacy. She is the author of Go-Go Live: The Musical Life & Death of a Chocolate City (Duke University Press, 2012) and A Mouth is Always Muzzled: Six Dissidents, Five Continents and the Art of Resistance (The New Press, 2018), two other books, five book chapters, and dozens of essays in the New York Times, Slate, and the Huffington Post. She is a former staff writer and editor at the Washington Post and one of the founding editors of the pioneering digital magazine The Root. She holds a B.A. in political science from Howard University and Master’s and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Maryland-College Park in journalism, public affairs and public communication. In 2020, Dr. Hopkinson was recognized as a Cultural Influencer by the District of Columbia Commission on Women; she received the Racial Justice Award from the Poverty & Race Research Action Council, and the Flame of Inspiration award from the Capstone Group. Her writing has been recognized by literary juries at PEN America, Hurston Wright Foundation, The Independent Publishers Association and academic juries at the Caribbean Studies Association and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Her work as a co-founder of the Don’t Mute DC movement influenced the legislation to make Go-Go the Official Music of Washington, D.C. In 2020, Mayor Muriel Bowser appointed her as a member of the District of Columbia Commission on the Arts & Humanities.