The Routledge Companion to Girls’ Studies is the definitive guide to the international, interdisciplinary, and intersectional field of Girls’ Studies, bringing together leading and emerging scholars across a range of academic disciplines to address timely topics on global girls and girlhoods.
Spread across four thematic sections, the essays in this collection offer a glimpse into the evolution of the field, directly challenge and move beyond the field’s early shortcomings, provide compelling examples of current research, and suggest new directions for future Girls’ Studies scholars. Chapters explore the connections between girlhoods and such topics as sexuality, race, ethnicity, religion, education, activism, social-class, ability, gender identity, media representation, and more.
The Routledge Companion to Girls’ Studies is of value to scholars and students of gender studies, media studies, sociology, education, health, literature, sexuality studies, communication, child and youth studies, and more.
Introduction
Sharon R. Mazzarella
PART ONE: What Can Girls’ Studies Be?
1. Girl Power and Its Afterlife: Neoliberalism and the Invention of Girlhood Studies
Marnina Gonick
2. Girls’ Studies and the Humanities: Recognizing Human-as-Girl
Ariane M. Balizet
3. For the Love of Black Girls: Building Black Girlhood Studies as a Lifejacket
Aria S. Halliday
4. Listen Up: Trans Girls, Trans Girlhoods, and Trans Girl Joy
Sally Campbell Pirie
5. Girlhood Studies: The First Fifteen Years
Claudia Mitchell and Ann Smith
6. Reflecting on the Development of Girlhood Studies in Israel
Einat Lachover
7. Polaroid Possibilities: Immanent Girlhood and the Tangle of Temporality
Shauna Pomerantz
8. Looking Forward: The Future of Girls’ Studies
Diana Leon-Boys
PART TWO: Who is the “Girl” in Girls’ Studies?
9. A Decolonial Approach to Leadership and Activism with Girls with Disabilities across Southern Spaces: Creating Spaces for Inclusion from Within
Xuan Thuy Nguyen
10. Girls’ Digital Citizenship Elsewhere
Annisa R. Beta
11. Kitab vs. Hijab: Muslim Girls Regenerating Politics in India
Saba Hussain
12. Funding Girls’ Activism: Cooptation, Feminism, and Institutional Change
Jessica K. Taft
13. Girls Fighting for the Planet: Climate Activism as Caring Intimate Counterpublics
Susan Driver
14. “Girls Can’t Do This Alone”: Understanding Girls’ Agency During Adolescence in Nine Countries
Rosie Walters, Jenny Rivett, and Lilli Loveday
15. Adolescent Girls’ Migration in the Global South: Moving into Adulthood
Katarzyna (Kasia) Grabska and Marina de Regt
16. Girls In Deprived Areas: Place, Violence, and Femininity
Maria A. Vogel, Linda Arnell and Maria Moberg Stephenson
17. Visibilizing Quinceañeras as Generational and Ethnic Bridge: Flashpoints of Latina Girlhoods
Angharad N. Valdivia
PART THREE: Representing Girls and Girlhoods
18. Representing Queer Girlhoods in 2020s Australian Film and Television
Whitney Monaghan
19. Dare to Dream: Family, Ambition, and Girlhood in Post-Millennial South Asian Cinema
Shailendra Kumar Singh
20. Reimagining Girlhood in Contemporary Malaysian Youth Literature
Sharifah Aishah Osman
21. “What It Feels Like for a Girl”: Exploring Girlhood in a Jamaican Context through Olive Senior’s "Do Angels Wear Brassieres?"
Aisha T. Spencer
22. “Work, Sleep, Make Money”: Girlboss Memes, Feminine Precarities, and the Endurance of the “Problematic” Girl
Shirley Xue Chen and Natasha Zeng
23. The Internet of (Feminist) Girls: Re-reading Gendered Internet Histories
Jessalyn Keller
24. (Re)visiting a Girl Revolution: Riot Grrrl Zines, Liminality, and Anarcha-Feminism
Caroline K. Kaltefleiter
25. The Erasure of Counter-Stereotypical Female Characters from Disney’s Transmedia Toys: Exploring Toy, Media, and Audience Tensions
Rebecca C. Hains
26. Celebrity Girls’ Studies: Interdisciplinary Scholarship on Fame, Girlhoods, and Identity
Spring Duvall
PART FOUR: Bodies, Sex, and Sexualities
27. Black Girls’ Adultification in South America as a Contemporary Case of Crimes Against Humanity
Maria Ximena Abello-Hurtado
28. The Sexual Health of Adolescents in Uganda: When Restricting Sexual and Reproductive Health Programs is All About Girls
Elizabeth Kemigisha, Dorcus Achen, and Viola Nilah Nyakato
29. Crush-Tastic: When Girls Encounter Sexually Explicit Materials
Deevia Bhana
30. Talking with Girls about Porn
Claire Meehan
31. Junior Fiction Magazines as a Means of Sex Education: Examining Yoshida Toshi’s The Castle of Venus
Hiromi Tsuchiya Dollase
32. "God is Always Watching You, Capeesh?": Satirizing Religion and Empowering Girls' Sexuality
Emily D. Ryalls
Biography
Sharon R. Mazzarella, PhD, is Professor of Communication Studies at James Madison University, United States. Her research takes a critical/cultural approach to interrogating mediated representations of youth, particularly girls and girlhoods. She is the author of Girls, Moral Panic, and the News Media: Troublesome Bodies (2020, Routledge).
