Skip navigation

Dr Joe Street

Associate Professor

Department: Humanities

Joe Street was educated at Sheffield University between 1996 and 2004. He joined Northumbria in 2009 after stints in the History Departments at Sheffield University and the University of Kent. An enthusiastic but sadly limited footballer who specialised in pointing and shouting, Joe was forced to end his anonymous playing career in 2012 due to injury, an event that was met with universal indifference. He spends a lot of time watching the mighty Heaton Stannington FC.

Between 2013 and 2019 Joe sat on the Executive Committee of the British Association for American Studies, chairing its Publications Committee between 2016 and the end of his term. Alongside Professor Martin Halliwell, he is a Series Editor of Edinburgh University Press's Critical Insights in American Studies series. He is also a member of Historians of the Twentieth-Century United States and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Between 2010 and 2015 he was Programme Leader for History. He also serves as the UCU representative for History staff and is Vice Chair of Northumbria's UCU branch.

He teaches across History and American Studies at Northumbria, including offering modules on the San Francisco Bay Area, the American West, the Black Panther Party, and the relationship between History and popular film. For more information on Joe's research interests, please see the Research Themes and Scholarly Interests tab. Please note that the 'Key Publications' section is populated and formatted automatically by the University.

Joe Street

Campus Address

Northumbria University
Lipman 329, City Campus
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 8ST

Joe’s research focuses on the nexus between politics and culture in the late twentieth century, with a particular focus on the San Francisco Bay Area in the period between the 1960s and the 2010s. His work encompasses African American radicalism, Silicon Valley ideology, and Bay Area literature, cinema, and popular culture. He is increasingly interested in pursuing inter- and multi-disciplinary approaches to these histories and is currently thinking about the relationship between public space and racial politics in the Bay Area. The first fruits of this project appeared as an article that revealed the racial subtexts in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, one of the most famous works of the great science fiction writer and Bay Area native, Philip K. Dick.

This long-term project follows the publication of his Silicon Valley Cinema (Edinburgh University Press, 2023), which probes Hollywood's representation of Silicon Valley in a selection of twenty-first century films, including VenomThe Social Network, and The Internship. It also builds on Joe's long-standing interest in the Black Panther Party. Following a series of scholarly articles that evaluate the historiography of the BPP, the impact of prison and solitary confinement on the BPP founder Huey P. Newton, and the BPP’s campaign to free Newton, Black Revolutionaries: A History of the Black Panther Party will be published by the University of Georgia Press in 2024.

Joe has also published work on the representation of San Francisco in Clint Eastwood’s 1971 movie, Dirty Harry. This was expanded into Dirty Harry’s America: Clint Eastwood, Harry Callahan and the Conservative Backlash (University Press of Florida, 2016), a study of the relationship between the Dirty Harry series and conservative politics in the 1970s and 1980s, which highlights the parallels between the political message of the movies and the political rhetoric of conservative leaders such as Ronald Reagan. Described as 'the last word on Dirty Harry' it is an ideal present for the Eastwood fan in your life.

Earlier in his career, Joe was one of a number of British scholars who reconsidered the influence of the African American struggle on racial politics in the UK during the 1960s. He published groundbreaking evaluations of Malcolm X’s impact on racial politics in the West Midlands and the significance of African American soul music on British youth in the 1960s. This led to further study of Dave Godin, a legendary figure in the British soul scene. 

Delving further back in time, Joe’s first monograph, The Culture War in the Civil Rights Movement (University Press of Florida, 2007) revealed the impact of cultural forms such as theater and music on the African American civil rights movement during the 1960s. From the singing workshops of the Highlander Folk School to the Black Panther Party’s Ministry for Culture it argued that ‘cultural organizing’ was central to the civil right movement’s operation.

  • Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
  • The Silicon Valley Novel, Eve, M., Street, J. 1 May 2018, In: Literature & History
  • Prometheus by the Bay: Hollywood and tech capitalism in Silicon Valley, Street, J., Hunter, R. 16 Jan 2024, In: Journal of Popular Culture
  • Do Androids Dream of Black Sheep?: Reading Race into Philip K. Dick, Street, J. 1 Dec 2020, In: Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction
  • ‘Free Huey or the Sky’s the Limit’: The Black Panther Party and the Campaign to Free Huey P. Newton, Street, J. 2 Apr 2019, In: European Journal of American Studies
  • The Shadow of the Soul Breaker: Solitary Confinement, Cocaine, and the Disintegration of Huey P. Newton, Street, J. Aug 2015, In: Pacific Historical Review
  • Dirty Harry’s America: Clint Eastwood, Harry Callahan and the Conservative Backlash, Street, J. 2 Sep 2016
  • The Shadow of Selma, Street, J., Knight Lozano, H. 27 Feb 2018
  • Dave Godin and the Politics of the British Soul Community, Street, J. Mar 2019, The Northern Soul Scene, Equinox
  • Stax, Subcultures and Civil Rights: Young Britain and the Politics of Soul Music in the 1960s, Street, J. 2015, The Other Special Relationship, London, Palgrave Macmillan
  • The Stax/Volt Revue and Soul Music Fandom in 1960s Britain, Street, J. 2014, Subcultures, Popular Music, and Social Change, Cambridge Scholars

  • Gabriel Hogg Race and Radicalism: An Exploration into Militant Waterfront Unionism & African American Working Class Activism in San Francisco, 1934-1954 Start Date: 01/10/2017 End Date: 01/07/2022
  • Mark Wilson The British Environmental Movement: The Development of an Environmental Consciousness and Environmental Activism, 1945 - 1975 Start Date: 04/10/2011 End Date: 13/11/2014
  • Rowan Hartland Black Power Culture in the American South, 1967-1977 Start Date: 01/10/2016 End Date: 01/06/2020
  • Ian Greenshields Start Date: 01/10/2020 End Date: 27/09/2023
  • Christopher Wallis The Thinker, The Doer, and The Decider: Zbigniew Brzezinski, Cyrus Vance and the Bureaucratic Wars of the Carter Administration Start Date: 05/04/2017 End Date: 10/10/2018

  • History PhD June 30 2004
  • Senior Fellow (SFHEA) Higher Education Academy (HEA) 2015


a sign in front of a crowd
+

Northumbria Open Days

Open Days are a great way for you to get a feel of the University, the city of Newcastle upon Tyne and the course(s) you are interested in.

Research at Northumbria
+

Research at Northumbria

Research is the life blood of a University and at Northumbria University we pride ourselves on research that makes a difference; research that has application and affects people's lives.

NU World
+

Explore NU World

Find out what life here is all about. From studying to socialising, term time to downtime, we’ve got it covered.


Latest News and Features

academic Jennifer Aston pictured in a law library holding an open book
Launch of The Regeneration Shop in Chopwell. Sarah Cotton, Senior Programmes Manager at Chopwell Regeneration Group; Jennine Wilson, Lecturer in Fashion and Senior Technician at Northumbria University; Hal Convery, Shop Manager at The Regeneration Shop; Crystal Hicks, Executive Director of Chopwell Regeneration Group; Gayle Cantrell, Assistant Professor BA Fashion Communication at Northumbria University; Sophie Wetherell, Assistant Professor BA Fashion / MA Fashion Design at Northumbria University; Emma Jane Goldsmith Assistant Professor BA Fashion / MA Fashion Design at Northumbria University; Professor Anne Peirson-Smith, Head of Fashion at Northumbria University.
Mooting
A new toolkit has been developed to support rural communities with the development of renewable energy projects. Photo: Adobe Stock
From left to right: Natalie Winchester, Subject Lead Health and Social Care and Post-16 Raising Standard Leader at Bede Academy, Dr Julie Derbyshire – Director of Apprenticeships and Assistant Professor in Nursing at Northumbria University, Andrew Thelwell – Principal at Bede Academy, Professor Alison Machin, Head of Department of Nursing, Midwifery and Health at Northumbria University and pupils from Bede Academy.
British Military Uniform
More news

Back to top