Matthew Oware

Matthew Oware is Irving May endowed chair in sociology at the University of Richmond. He received his Ph.D. from Indiana University in Bloomington and previously taught at DePauw University. Dr. Oware teaches a variety of courses, including Foundations of Society, Sociological Research Methods, Sociology of Hip Hop, Race and Ethnicity in America, and Masculinities, among others.

Dr. Oware's research focuses on the constructions of racialized and gendered identities in popular culture, Black masculinity in African-American expressive culture, and the Black family in American society. He has analyzed how popular male rap artists address notions of fatherhood and masculinity in their music. He has also examined, via content analysis of rap songs, how underground white rap artists engage in racial evasion while simultaneously perpetuating aspects of hegemonic masculinity. Overall, his work tends to center on the intersections of race, class, and gender in popular culture, incorporating theoretical frames such Black Feminist Thought, social capital, hegemonic masculinity, and colorblind racism.

Dr. Oware's most recent book, "I Got Something to Say: Race, Gender, and Social Consciousness in Rap Music" (Palgrave Macmillan 2018), uses systematic, analytic, and interdisciplinary approaches to examining the lyrics of millennial rap artists. He also has publications in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Journal of Black Studies, Poetics: Journal of Empirical Research on Culture, the Media and the Arts, the Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, and the Journal of African American Studies, among others.

Outside of academia, Professor Oware has worked with community organizations advocating for marginalized and homeless groups.