Geoff Harkness, assistant professor of sociology, recently had his first book published. “Chicago Hustle and Flow: Gangs, Gangsta Rap, and Social Class” explores the relationship between gang membership, gangsta rap and social class in Chicago’s underground rap music scene.

Geoff Harkness, assistant professor of sociology at Morningside College, recently had his first book published by the University of Minnesota Press.

The book, “Chicago Hustle and Flow: Gangs, Gangsta Rap, and Social Class,” explores the relationship between gang membership, gangsta rap and social class in Chicago’s underground rap music scene. Based on six years of ethnographic research, the book takes readers into this world and offers an up-close account of the connections between street gang and gangsta rap culture. 

Harkness came to Morningside College this fall after serving as a visiting assistant professor of sociology at Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa. Prior to that, he spent three years as a postdoctoral teaching fellow at Carnegie Mellon and Northwestern Universities in Qatar. Harkness has a doctorate in sociology from Northwestern University in Evanston.