H ebdige, D ick

Abstract

Dick Hebdige (b. 1951) is a British cultural theorist best known for his influential book, Subculture: The Meaning of Style (1979). His earliest essays were published in Resistance through Rituals (Hall ∓Jefferson 2006 [1975]), a collection of work about youth subcultures produced at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) at Birmingham University, where he was a graduate student. In these essays, Hebdige wrote a eulogy for English mods, portraying them as examples of “the first all‐British White Negro,” a description he drew from Norman Mailer's account of the American beat or “hipster.” He also wrote about “Reggae, rastas ∓rudies” – the only essay in Resistance through Rituals to deal directly with racial issues among British youth in the 1970s – where he developed his sense of the subversive possibility of subcultural musical styles and celebrated cross‐cultural flows and influences.