Natalie Hopkinson Associate Professor Journalism
- Degrees
- B.A., Political Science, Howard University
M.A., Journalism and Public Affairs, University of Maryland-College Park
Ph.D. Journalism and Public Communication, University of Maryland-College Park - Favorite Spot on Campus
- The rooftop @ McKinley
- Bio
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Natalie Hopkinson, Ph.D. is associate professor of Media, Democracy and Society. She is author of three books and hundreds of journalistic as well as academic peer-reviewed articles and book chapters about Black and Indigenous art, media, and knowledge systems. Her exhibits, film and other documentary projects map culture in West Africa, the Caribbean, South America and Europe.
She served as Chief Curator of the Go-Go Museum & Cafe, whose Feb. 2025 grand opening in Historic Anacostia culminated decades of her journalism, scholarship and advocacy. She reported on go-go music as an arts and youth culture staff writer at the Washington Post, and served on the founding team of editors for the digital magazine The Root, the Slate spinoff led by Harvard University scholar Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. Her doctoral dissertation at the University of Maryland-College Park was the first to theorize go-go music as a public sphere, news and cultural network. As co-founder of the Don't Mute DC movement, she shaped the legislation that decriminalized go-go music and designated it the Official Music of Washington, D.C. in 2020.聽
She revived the city's folklife research program, Traditional Arts DC, which specializes in archiving, mapping and cultural transmission of District of Columbia heritage.聽 Since 2022, she has served as co-lead scholar and curatorial consultant to the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. The museum's Legacy Galleries expansion project tells the story of Civil Rights post-1968 is scheduled to open January 2026 in Tennessee.
SELECTED HONORS
Natalie Hopkinson's books include: A Mouth is Always Muzzled (2018, The New Press), Go-Go Live (2012, Duke University Press) and Deconstructing Tyrone with Natalie Y. Moore (2006, Cleis Press). Her writing was recognized by the Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards, PEN-America, and the Independent Publishers Association, SPIN Magazine, among others.
The Capstone Group, the D.C. Commission on Women, and The Poverty & Race Research Action Council named her a 鈥渇lame of inspiration鈥 and 鈥渃ultural influencer鈥 and 鈥渧oice for racial justice.鈥 District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser proclaimed Nov. 5, 2021 鈥淧ushy Woman Day鈥 in Washington, D.C. to honor her success challenging entrenched special political interests in the arts. She is the recipient of the 2023 Artist Activist award from the Canady Foundation for the Arts and the 2024 "Wammie" Award for Music Advocacy.
- For the Media
- To request an interview for a news story, call 缅北轮奸 Communications at 202-885-5950 or submit a request.
Teaching
Fall 2024
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COMM-445 Global Journalism in 21st Cent
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COMM-468 Musical Cultures & Industries
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CORE-106 Complex Problems Seminar: Music/Mass Movements/Democracy
Spring 2025
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COMM-270 How News Med Shape Hist