Jeb Middlebrook, Ph.D. is Founding Partner of Research & Development at Middlebrook LLC® (est. 2003), a global firm assisting individuals, institutions, and industries in education, arts, social justice, business, and real estate, with offices in Long Beach, Lakewood, and Seal Beach, CA.
Jeb holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in American Studies & Ethnicity from the University of Southern California, a specialization in Real Estate from UCLA, and a B.A. in Ethnic Studies from the University of Minnesota. Jeb has earned faculty awards from USC and California State University.
Jeb specializes in events-based marketing (community events, pop-ups, live webcasts, festivals), front-facing sales (in-person and online), brand and organizational development, industry and non-profit research, and commercial and residential real estate. Jeb has worked with: NBC, ABC, MTV, Vh1, PBS, Complex, Yale University, University of Southern California, California State University, University of Colorado, University of Minnesota, Sierra Club, and Coldwell Banker, among others.
Jeb also holds certifications in Online Teaching from Quality Matters, Diversity Training from Cultural Intelligence Center, and a local/global real estate sales and referral license from the California Department of Real Estate (DRE 02097471 / Coldwell Banker Coastal Alliance).
Jeb’s work has been recognized by the Ford Foundation, the Council of Editors of Learned Journals, and ABC, NBC and MTV Networks. His academic writing is published by American Quarterly, Qualitative Inquiry, Cultural Studies / Critical Methodologies, Journal of African American Studies, Greenwood Press, Gale/Cenage Press, and indexed by the MLA Bibliography. Jeb has presented at Yale University, the University of Minnesota, Kansas University, among other research universities.
His first book manuscript, Organizing Race: Antiracist Activism and Multiracial Alliance in the United States, is a historical and contemporary study of radical Left organizing across race (and its relation to gender, sexuality and class) from the 1960s to the present that sought antiracist, anti-capitalist, and anti-imperialist institutional change. His second book project, Prison Music: Containment, Escape, and the Sound of America, is a cultural history of incarceration in U.S. society from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century, told through the sound of prison in popular culture, policy, and protest.
Jeb is the recipient of an Award for Excellence in Teaching, a Fund for Innovative Undergraduate Teaching Award, and a Learning Environments Incentive Grant from the University of Southern California (USC) for his research, teaching, and service work. Jeb is also the recipient of a Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity Award, a Program for Excellence in Graduate Education Award, and a Distinguished Teaching Award nomination from the California State University (CSU) system.
At USC, Jeb has taught courses including, “Social Problems,” “Crowds, Publics, and Social Movements,” “Public Policy and Criminal Justice,” and “Social Inequality: Class, Status, and Power.” He also has taught in the Department of Sociology, the Women’s and Ethnic Studies Program, and the Graduate Certificate Program in Diversity, Social Justice, and Inclusion at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs with classes including, “The Culture of Incarceration,” “Music and Social Change,” and “Class, Stratification, and Power.”
At CSU, Jeb has taught courses including, “Field Studies in Urban Problems,” “Criminology,” “Corrections,” “Deviant Behavior,” “Juvenile Delinquency,” “Social Organization,” “The Individual in Society,” “Sound and Society,” “Hip-Hop and Justice Studies,” and “Social Movements,” among other courses. His research and teaching interests span the disciplines of sociology, ethnic studies, cultural studies, geography, history, and anthropology, and include topics such as: race and ethnicity, prison, music, sound, social movements, transnationalism, intersectionality (race, class, gender, sexuality), popular culture, archives, and ethnography.
Jeb lectures nationally through SpeakOut!: The Institute for Democratic Education and Culture, with colleagues such as Angela Davis, Winona LaDuke, Sonia Sanchez, Van Jones, Noam Chomsky, Ward Churchill, Alice Walker, and the late Howard Zinn. He has given talks to thousands of people at campuses across the United States including Yale University, University of California, University of Minnesota, University of Missouri, and Kansas University.
Jeb worked as managing editor of American Quarterly: The Journal of the American Studies Association, and was part of the editorial team that won Journal Issue of the Year from the Council of Editors of Learned Journals for the Special Issue, Nation and Migration: Past and Future (Johns Hopkins University Press). He has also worked as a Teaching Assistant for university courses in the departments of American Studies and Ethnicity, Anthropology, and Sociology at the University of Southern California including “America, the Frontier, and the New West”, “Race and Class in Los Angeles,” “Exploring Culture Through Film”, and “Social Problems.”
Jeb has received international media coverage for his work from NBC, ABC, and MTV Networks, Associated Press, Complex Magazine, and Hot 97 Radio in New York, among other media outlets. He has been featured in the television program, The (White) Rapper Show (MTV/VH1), the film, Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible (WorldTrust), and the books, Other People’s Property: A Shadow History of Hip-Hop in White America, and Beacons in the Storm: White Educator Activists Working for Racial Justice.
Jeb has volunteered with social justice organizations locally and nationally, including: AmeriCorps*National Civilian Community Corps (Western Region), Showing Up for Racial Justice (National and Long Beach, CA Chapters), Black Lives Matter (National and Long Beach, CA Chapters), Occupy Movement (National and Various Chapters), Critical Resistance (Los Angeles Chapter), Californians for Justice (Oakland and Long Beach, CA Chapters), Center for Third World Organizing, Challenging White Supremacy workshop, Khmer Girls in Action, Men Making a Change, Los Angeles Community Action Network, Young Patriots Organization, Hip-Hop Co-op, and SESSION.
Jeb is also a DJ, curator, and poet, and is on social media @JebMiddlebrook. He lives in Long Beach, CA and is from Austin, MN.
