Eithne is the author of two books Nuthin' but a G Thang: The Culture and Commerce of Gangsta Rap (Columbia University Press, 2005) and A Piece of the Action: Race and Labor in Post-Civil Rights Hollywood (Columbia University Press, 2019), which won the 2020 BAAS Prize for Best Book of 2020

She led an Arts & Humanities Research Council project Prosecuting Rap: Criminal Justice and UK Black Youth Expressive Culture (2020-21)

Growing out of this project, she is currently conducting a project on Tackling Racial Bias in the Judiciary, based on a Simon Industrial & Professional Fellowship at The University of Manchester. Read the co-authored project report here

Eithne has also published multiple peer reviewed articles in the areas of race, inequalities, cultural industries and representational justice

Research interests:

My research concentrates on race politics in the cultural industries and criminal justice systems of the US and UK since the 1970s, with a particular focus on Black popular culture and institutional racism

I am collaborating with lawyers and Manchester researchers on a new project on Tackling Racial Bias in the Judiciary  -- a study exploring racism, inclusion and antiracism training among judicial office holders in England and Wales. This work emerged from a Simon Industrial and Professional Fellowship which I hosted at The University of Manchester in 2021-22

A recent major project examined race politics in the Hollywood industry since the 1960s, exploring the interface between screen representations and battles to reform and transform production cultures in a period of reconfiguration and retrenchment. Major outputs were the monograph A Piece of the Action: Race and Labor in Post-Civil Rights Hollywood (Columbia University Press, 2020) and articles in Journal of American History, Screen, Popular Communication, Velvet Light Trap and Cinema Journal. The project was supported by the Leverhulme Trust and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)

My previous book Nuthin' But a 'G' Thang: The Culture and Commerce of Gangsta Rap (Columbia University Press) looked at the emergence and development of gangsta rap in the 1980s and 1990s. Following its publication, I started serving as an independent legal expert in cases in which defendants' rap lyrics and videos were relied on as incriminating evidence. This work became the project Prosecuting Rap: Criminal Justice and UK Black Youth Expressive Culture supported by an AHRC Leadership Fellowship (2020-21) 

 Teaching areas

• Hip Hop Studies (MA)
• Climate Change & Culture Wars (3rd year special subject)
• Cultural Studies (2nd year core)
• Race and Representation in Contemporary America (1st year seminar)

In 2021, Eithne edited an In-Practice in Journal of American Studies on Teaching Environmental American Studies in a Time of Crisis  

Knowledge exchange 

Eithne acts as an independent expert in UK legal cases in which the prosecution seeks to rely on defendants’ rap music and related expressive culture as incriminating evidence. See her blog post. She is a full member of the Academy of Experts, the professional society and accrediting body for expert witnesses.

Eithne is also a member of the British Society of Criminology; British Association for American Studies; Media, Communication & Cultural Studies Association; and Society for Cinema and Media Studies.   

Supervision areas

I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD students in the fields of

Racism and inequalities in the criminal legal system

US cultural industries (film and popular music) since the 1960s

Race and representation in media, culture and the law

Popular culture, activism and social change (environmental action; criminal justice; subcultures; antiracism)

I have been lead supervisor on nine successfully completed doctoral projects