Joe Street

Dr Joe Street

Associate Professor in the department of Humanities

What area does your research focus on?

Broadly: African American history between roughly 1960 and 1980, the cinema of the San Francisco Bay Area; more specifically, African American radicalism, the Black Panther Party, Silicon Valley films, Bay Area literature, Dirty Harry (yes, that Dirty Harry), Northern Soul in the UK 

What are the other key aspects of your role?

I’m vice chair of the UCU branch at Northumbria, which is the trade union for academics. In this role, I represent staff in meetings with management, organise campaigns alongside other activists, and engage in negotiations with faculty and university management over issues and policies related to staff. I teach American history at all levels, supervise postgraduate students, and contribute to various other modules in History and American Studies. I do a lot of paperwork too… 

What do you like to do outside of work?

I cycle regularly with friends and am the club photographer for Heaton Stannington FC, so I attend just about every competitive game the first team plays and the occasional reserve team fixture. Beyond that, I read fiction, watch bad TV with my wife and teenage daughter, and listen to a vast range of music.

What do you think you could particularly offer mentoring support with?

I like to think that I’m good at time management and juggling various priorities (particularly when I have a long-term project on). I have a healthy scepticism about higher education’s purported lack of discrimination and hope I can help folk negotiate their way through the transition from PhD student to tenured academic. 

I came from a working-class background and feel I know a little bit about the masks we have to adopt to ‘get on’ in HE, particularly among those who come from wealthier/more privileged backgrounds, although I’m also very aware that as a white male, I still benefit from immense privileges. I’m really keen to help people find their own voice and articulate it.