--- title: College Class on Hipsters at Tufts University description: Tufts University is offering a class on hipsters. canonical: https://time.com/3153922/tufts-hipster-culture-course/ author: Anita Hamilton article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-08-21T16:18:38.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:12:37.924Z og:title: There's a College Course on Hipsters, But It's Probably Too Mainstream For You Anyway og:description: Sneak PBR into a discussion og:url: https://time.com/3153922/tufts-hipster-culture-course/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt49f7a04b1bb7f33f/6986a05ee8524bfd40604603/160519026.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4256 og:image:height: 2394 og:image:alt: Hipster in record store og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: There's a College Course on Hipsters, But It's Probably Too Mainstream For You Anyway twitter:description: Sneak PBR into a discussion twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt49f7a04b1bb7f33f/6986a05ee8524bfd40604603/160519026.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Not Too Cool For School: Tufts Offers Class on Hipsters > Sponsored content. 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The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. by [Anita Hamilton](https://time.com/author/anita-hamilton/) ## Anita Hamilton Aug 21, 2014 4:18 PM UTC  browsing the record shop browsing the record shop Getty Images by [Anita Hamilton](https://time.com/author/anita-hamilton/) ## Anita Hamilton Aug 21, 2014 4:18 PM UTC College is fraught with all kinds of anxiety, not the least of which is social. Now Tufts University in Massachusetts has found a way to combine fear of failing your classes with fear of not being cool in a single, one-credit course called “Demystifying the Hipster.” Taught by professor Jackie O’Dell, the class will examine everything from film and fashion to art and literature in order to decipher just what makes a hipster a hipster. “Students will become critics and sociologists of today’s hipster culture as they explore how hipster identity reflects larger cultural anxiety,” according to the [course description](http://www.excollege.tufts.edu/coursesCurrent.asp). While hipsterdom may seem like a modern-day phenomenon (or affliction, depending on your perspective), the term itself has been around since the early 1900s. Long associated with Harlem jazz culture, hipsters were also known as “hepcats” through the 1940s. Jazz singer Cab Calloway’s [Jive Dictionary](http://www.cabcalloway.cc/jive%5Fdictionary.htm), published in 1939, defines “hip” as “wise, sophisticated, anyone with boots on.” Even Norman Mailer weighed in on the matter with his 1957 essay, “The White Negro: Superficial Reflections on the Hipster,” which is required reading for the Tufts course. But since trying to be cool automatically disqualifies you from actually being cool, we suspect all this diligent dissection of the topic won’t turn “A” students into hipsters. At best, they’ll just be groupies. 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