Shayna Maskell

Shayna Maskell is an Associate Professor in the School of Integrative studies at George Mason University. Her book Politics of Sound: The Washington DC Hardcore Scene 1978-1983 (2021) explores how and why cultural forms, such as music, produce and resist politics and power. Her areas of research include popular and youth culture, intersectionality, and social justice. She has previously been published in the Journal of Popular Music Studies and The Journal of Youth and Adolescence, as well as chapters in Beyond the Culture: Black Popular Culture and Social Justice, Hardcore Research and Punk Politics, and Music at the Extremes: Essays on Sounds Outside the Mainstream, among others. Shayna has taught for almost two decades at such institutions as the University of Southern California, California Institute of the Arts, University of Maryland, and Corcoran College of Art and Design, before coming to George Mason. Her classes often focus on intersectionality and the ways in which concepts of self and society are constructed through a multitude of popular texts.

Degrees

• PhD, American Studies, University of Maryland (2014)
• MFA, Creative Writing, University of Southern California (2006)
• BA, English, University of Pennsylvania (2001)

Research and Awards

Awards

• University Teaching Excellence Award, George Mason University (2023)
• Center of Excellence in Teaching Award, University of Southern California (2006)
• University Teacher of the Year Award: Excellence in Graduate School, University of Southern California (2005).

Research

• Entering the Multiverse, Perspectives on Alternate Universes and Parallel, “‘The Infinite Knowledge and Power of the Multiverse”: Intersectionality as the Multiverse in Everything Everywhere All at Once” ed. Paul Booth, January 2025.
• Journal of Cultural and Ethnic Studies, “Who Cancelled Lee Highway? Nextdoor and Neighborhood Expressions of Racial Justice,” November 2024.
• Beyond the Culture: Black Popular Culture and Social Justice; “Lovecraft Country and the Magical Destruction of White Feminism," ed., Lakeyta Monique Bonnette-Bailey, March 2023.
• Hardcore Research and Punk Politics, “ ‘There is No Hope for the USA’: Bad Brains and the Sounds of Race in DC Hardcore,” eds. Konstantin Butz and Robert Winkler, Columbia University Press, April 2023.
• Politics of Sound: The Washington DC Hardcore Scene, 1978-1983, University of Illinois Press, October 2021.
• The Journal of Youth and Adolescence, Leadership Stories Our Youth Are Told: Characterizations of Leadership Behaviors and Orientations in Popular Youth TV Shows. Maskell, S., McCarron, G.P., Cannon, J. et al., September 2021.
• The Red Brick Bungalow Where Hardcore Made a Home, Essay, Zocala Public Square, September 2021.
• Oxford Handbook of Punk, “We’re Just a Minor Threat: Minor Threat and the Intersectionality of Sound,” Oxford University Press, 2020.
• Public Space, Public Policy, and Public Understanding of Race and Ethnicity in America: An Interdisciplinary Approach, “A Tale of Two Cities: Go-Go and Punk as Representation of Race in Washington DC,” University of Akron Press, 2016.
• Music at the Extremes: Essays on Sounds Outside the Mainstream, “Noise as Power: Bad Brains and the Aesthetics of Race in Hardcore Punk,” McFarland & Company, June 2015.
• Journal of Popular Music Studies, Volume 21, Issue 4: “Performing Punk: Bad Brains and the Construction of Identity,” 2009.

Courses Taught

• Honors 130, Subcultures of Music
• Integrative Studies 245, Visual Culture in Society
• Integrative Studies 304, Social Movements and Community Activism
• Integrative Studies 344, Youth, Music, and Social Change
• Integrative Studies 346, Art as Social Action
• Integrative Studies 347, Representations of Gender in Popular Culture
• Integrative Studies 362, Social Justice and Human Rights

Fall 2025 Classes

• Honors 130, Subcultures of Music
• INTS 101, Narratives of Identity