Sophia Townsend ’20, Seattle, Washington

Majors: Psychology; Critical Identity Studies

Leaving Suburbia is a year long research project which examines themes of white escapism outlined in punk rock. This project specifically looks at the band Green Day and their 2004 album American Idiot as a primary example of leaving suburbia functioning as a means of white punks trying to escape or redefine what it means to be white in America. While this project is a smaller piece of a larger puzzle, in which themes of trying to redefine whiteness have existed throughout punk’s history, it specifically looks at this notion of suburbia as it’s discussed by Green Day and groups functioning alongside this example.