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 BAAS Prize for Best Book of 2020.

She leads the research project: Prosecuting Rap: Criminal Justice and UK Black Youth Expressive Culture (see website), funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and an ESRC IAA. Read: project report Compound Injustice. Watch: project intro (90 secs).

She is also conducting a project on Tackling Racial Bias in the Judiciary, seeded by a Simon Industrial & Professional Fellowship at The University of Manchester. Read the project report Racial Bias and the Bench.

See the press coverage of these research projects here.  

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

My research concentrates on race and class politics in the cultural industries and legal systems of the US and UK since the 1960s, with a particular focus on popular culture and institutional racism.

I am working with lawyers and Manchester researchers on a project on Tackling Racial Bias in the Judiciary -- exploring racialised (and antiracist) procedures and practices in the courts and among judicial office holders, focusing on England and Wales. 

A previous major project examined race politics in the US film industry since the 1960s, exploring the interface between screen representations and battles to reform and transform production cultures in a period of racial reconfiguration and retrenchment. Outputs included the award-winning monograph A Piece of the Action: Race and Labor in Post-Civil Rights Hollywood and articles in Journal of American History, Screen, Popular Communication, Velvet Light Trap and Cinema Journal. Supported by the Leverhulme Trust and the AHRC.

My book Nuthin' But a 'G' Thang: The Culture and Commerce of Gangsta Rap looked at the US emergence and development of gangsta rap in the 1980s and 1990s. Following its publication, I started serving as an independent expert in criminal cases in England and Wales in which defendants' rap lyrics and videos were relied on as incriminating evidence. This work became the project Prosecuting Rap. See Open Access outputs: journal article Drill rap lyrics as criminal evidence in group prosecutions and report Compound Injustice.

I edited an In-Practice in Journal of American Studies on Teaching Environmental American Studies in a Time of Crisis (2021). I teach the courses:

• Race and Justice (1st year seminar)
• American Cultural Studies (2nd year core)
• Climate Change & Culture Wars (3rd year special subject)
• Hip Hop Studies (MA option)

I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD students in any of the research areas above.

I have been lead supervisor on ten successfully completed doctoral projects.

I am a member of the British Society of Criminology; Socio-Legal Studies Association; Media, Communication & Cultural Studies Association; and British Association for American Studies.