Dick Hebdige

Dick Hebdige (born 1951) is an English media theorist and sociologist, and a professor emeritus of art and media studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he taught from 2002 to 2021. His work is commonly associated with the study of subcultures, and its resistance against the mainstream of society. His current research interests include media topographies, desert studies, and performative criticism.

Hebdige has written extensively on contemporary art, design, media and cultural studies, on mod style, reggae, postmodernism and style, surrealism, improvisation, and Takashi Murakami. and an honorary Ph.D. degree from Goldsmiths, University of London (formerly known as Goldsmiths' College).

Professional career

Hebdige has been teaching at art schools since the mid-1970s. Since 1992, Hebdige has been working on arts administration, events planning, program development, and curriculum innovation first at CalArts (2001-2008), then at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) as director of the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center from 2005 and as co-director of the University of California Institute for Research in the Arts (UCIRA). The project invites students, faculty, and the public to make art that is "immersive" in the desert in multiple ways.

Major publications

Hebdige's 1979 book Subculture: The Meaning of Style was written between 1977 and 1978 amid the unfolding of punk in the United Kingdom. Hebdige, in his mid-twenties at the time, had just graduated with a Master of Arts degree from Birmingham University’s Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS). At this time, the domain of cultural studies was just emerging. Subculture was commissioned by University of Cardiff English professor and editor, Terence Hawkes, as part of a series published by Methuen called New Accents (aimed at introducing theoretical and interpretive approaches to English literature students). The commission was an opportunity for Hebdige to continue graduate work on developing a contextual, culturalist model of youth culture and consumption. Specifically, linking the concerns of youth culture, consumption, and the politics of insubordination to debates within aesthetics, semiotics, and poststructuralism. Hebdige states that “the aspiration was to blur the line between specialized, discipline-embedded academic and intellectually curious subcultural, non-academic readerships.”

Publications Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London & New York: Routledge, 1979. Cut‘n’Mix: Culture, Identity and Caribbean Music. London & New York: Routledge, 1987. Hiding in the Light: On Images and Things. London & New York: Routledge, 1988.

Contributions Sound Unbound: Sampling Digital Music and Culture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008. Edited by Paul D. Miller a.k.a. DJ Spooky. . Hebdige contributed a chapter.