Lawrence Grossberg (born December 3, 1947) is an American scholar of

cultural studies Cultural studies is an interdisciplinary field that examines the political dynamics of contemporary culture (including popular culture) and its historical foundations. Cultural studies researchers generally investigate how cultural practices re ...

and

popular culture Popular culture (also called mass culture or pop culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as, popular art or mass art) and objects that are dominant or prevalent in a ...

whose work focuses primarily on popular music and the politics of youth in the United States. He is widely known for his research in the philosophy of communication and culture. Though his scholarship focused significantly throughout the 1980s and early 1990s on the politics of

postmodernism Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or Rhetorical modes, mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by philosophical skepticism, skepticis ...

, his more recent work explores the possibilities and limitations of alternative and emergent formations of

modernity Modernity, a topic in the humanities and social sciences, is both a historical period (the modern era) and the ensemble of particular socio-cultural norm (social), norms, attitudes and practices that arose in the wake of the Renaissancein the " ...

Biography

Born on December 3, 1947, and raised in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, Grossberg went to Stuyvesant High School. In 1968 he graduated ''summa cum laude'' in history and philosophy from the

University of Rochester The University of Rochester (U of R, UR, or U of Rochester) is a private university, private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants Undergraduate education, undergraduate and graduate degrees, including Doctorate, do ...

, where he studied with

Hayden White Hayden V. White (July 12, 1928 – March 5, 2018) was an American historian in the tradition of literary criticism, perhaps most famous for his work '' Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe'' (1973/2014). Career ...

. Afterwards, he trained under

Richard Hoggart Herbert Richard Hoggart (24 September 1918 – 10 April 2014) was a British academic whose career covered the fields of sociology, English literature and cultural studies, with emphasis on British popular culture. Early life Hoggart was bor ...

and Stuart Hall at the

Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics *Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentricit ...

at the

University of Birmingham , mottoeng = Through efforts to heights , established = 1825 – Birmingham School of Medicine and Surgery1836 – Birmingham Royal School of Medicine and Surgery1843 – Queen's College1875 – Mason Science College1898 – Mason Univers ...

, England. After two years of traveling through Europe with Les Treteaux Libres, a French-speaking theater company, Grossberg returned to the United States for doctoral studies in communication research (with James W. Carey) at the

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univ ...

. There, he received a PhD in speech communication in 1976. His doctoral dissertation, which he now largely repudiates, was entitled, ''Dialectical Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences.

Grossberg taught briefly at

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money ...

in West Lafayette, Indiana (1975-1976), before returning to the University of Illinois as assistant professor of speech communication in 1976. At the University of Illinois he supported founding the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory. He was promoted to the rank of associate professor in 1982, and in 1990 achieved the rank of Professor of Speech Communication. Currently, he is Emeritus Professor of Communication at UNC. His published books include ''It's a Sin: Essays on Postmodernism, Politics and Culture'' (1988), '' We Gotta Get Out of This Place: Popular Conservatism and Postmodern Culture'' (1992), ''Bringing it All Back Home: Essays on Cultural Studies'' (1997), ''Dancing in Spite of Myself: Essays in Popular Culture'' (1997), ''Caught in the Crossfire: Kids, Politics and America's Future'' (2005), and ''Cultural Studies in the Future Tense'' (2010). Grossberg is co-author of ''MediaMaking: Mass Media in a Popular Culture'' (2005) and ''About Raymond Williams'' (2010), and co-edited (with Cary Nelson and Paula Treichler) ''Cultural Studies.'' He has also published more than one hundred articles and essays. Grossberg serves on the editorial collective of '' Public Culture'', among many other academic journals. He was also editor of the journal ''

Cultural Studies Cultural studies is an interdisciplinary field that examines the political dynamics of contemporary culture (including popular culture) and its historical foundations. Cultural studies researchers generally investigate how cultural practices re ...

'' from 1990 to 2019. His work, including a number of collections, has been translated into ten languages. Grossberg has stated that Stuart Hall was the godfather to his only son.

Biography

Bibliography

Books

Journal articles

References

Further reading