Lena Gotteswinter on “Black hipster culture in music and fashion and the potential of political activism”

Thomas Thurston talks with Lena Gotteswinter on her project “Black hipster culture in music and fashion and the potential of political activism”.

Lena Gotteswinter is a research assistant at the University of Regensburg. She received her M.A. in North American Studies from the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg in 2016, where she also completed her B.A. in English and American Studies and Book Studies. Her dissertation, “The Diversification of the Hipster”, explores deviations from the stereotypical definition of ‘hipness’ as male, white, and middle-class. Focusing in particular on black hipsters, so-called ‘blipsters,’ she explores how contemporary blipsters’ subcultural habitus is owed to the history of black resistance, from slavery to the continuous contact zone of black and white culture today. Using theories of subcultures and performativity, she looks at contemporary fashion, music, and art. 

Recommended Resources:

• John Leland,  Hip: The History (Ecco Press, 2005).
• Robert Lanham, The Hipster Handbook (Anchor, 2003).
• Shane Vogel, Stolen Time: Black Fad Performance and the Calypso Craze (University of Chicago Press, 2018).

“Slavery and Its Legacies” is available on iTunes and SoundCloud. Email comments and suggestions to gilder.lehrman.center@yale.edu with subject line “podcast”