Kerri Kanelos

Queer Youth Cultures

admin — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 16:46:00 +0000

Queer youth are often absent from discussions about adolescents, popular culture, and even the queer community. Susan Driver, an advocate and expert on LGBTQ youth, puts together a thoughtful and diverse collection of work that gives voice to queer youth without pathologizing them. Queer Youth Cultures, edited by Driver, is broken down into three parts: selections about building queer youth cultures and community, the impact of popular culture on queer youth, and queer youth political advocacy.

My favorite essay, by far, was Judith Halberstam’s “What’s That Smell?: Queer Temporalities and Subcultural Lives.” Halberstam, a rock star in the world of queer theory, presents various queer subcultures (dyke punk music, drag king performances, slam poetry, etc.) and discusses the importance of archiving these subcultures without exploitation. The reading also features some pieces of Halberstam’s theories found in her groundbreaking book-length work In a Queer Time and Place.

Mark Lipton’s “Queer Readings of Popular Culture: Searching [To] Out the Subtext” is an in-depth study of how queer youth are capable of creating queer storylines and characters out of seemingly heterosexual popular culture. Since Lipton originally researched this topic in 1990 and again towards 2000, it is interesting to see the progression with the addition of Will and Grace and The L Word—texts that actually include LGBTQ characters.

But not every reading in this collection is theoretical in nature, which makes Queer Youth Cultures that much more accessible and important. “Redefining Realities Through Self-Representational Performance,” by Jama Shelton, features best practices on how queer youth can harness their own experiences and individual voices to build their self-esteem. Shelton discusses the artistic programming at Houston-based LGBTQ youth organization H.A.T.C.H. (Houston Area Teen Coalition of Homosexuals), and shares powerful examples from works created by youth in the program.

Queer Youth Cultures is a beautiful photography collection by Cass Bird that gives visibility to queer youth. I particularly enjoyed “I Look Just Like My Daddy” and “I Look Just Like My Mommy”—two juxtaposed photographs of one youth displaying both typical feminine and masculine characteristics. Since queer youth are often judged based on their appearance, I appreciate the editor’s decision to include photography in this text.

Written by: Kerri Kanelos, March 22nd 2009

Growing Girls: The Natural Origins of Girls’ Organizations in America

admin — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 19:54:00 +0000

By Susan A. Miller

Rutgers University Press

As a former Girl Scout, I have vivid memories of my first trip to Camp Hoffman where my troop and I listened to the history of the organization. I particularly remember an awful amount of fanfare when my leader discussed Juliette Gordon Low, the fearless founder of the Girl Scouts. After reading Susan A. Miller’s Growing Girls, I feel a little jaded about my 2nd grade introduction to the Girl Scouts. This book, which particularly focuses on the creation and growth of the Girl Scouts and the Campfire Girls during the early 20th century, is equally pertinent to today’s camping and scouting opportunities for girls.

Typical of the time period, scouting programs for girls were originally created to solve the “problems” of Victorian girls—namely their evolution away from the domestic sphere and towards modernism, fashion, and popular culture. Scout leaders claimed to be experts on adolescent girls, yet over the course of the few decades covered in this book, both the Girl Scouts and the Campfire Girls continuously shifted the focus of their programming in an effort to strike just the right balance. Miller’s research shows the finely gendered line between offering programming that taught independence, survival skills and discipline, without the threat of being perceived as too masculine. Unfortunately, scouting programs during this time period included too many gender-related rules and regulations that left girls mostly observing nature instead of participating in it. Later programming focused heavily on equally ridiculous tasks such as charting one’s weight and the fun of washing dishes in the outdoors.

From the founding of their organizations, both the Girl Scouts and Campfire Girls recruited thousands of girls by using two important tools — summer camp, now a multi-million dollar part of American culture, and purchasable items. I was amazed to read about the attention that leaders put into their organization’s badges, uniforms, supplies and endless publications, such as the Woodcraft Manual for Girls and Kettles and Campfires.

It is very obvious that Miller conducted a tremendous amount of research for this book, which makes Growing Girls a valuable resource about the history of scouting, as well as gender relations in the early 20th century United States. A few points are a little dry, but overall I think that this text deserves a spot next other important books about adolescent girls such as Joan Jacobs Brumberg’s The Body Project _and Peggy Orenstein’s _SchoolGirls.

Written by: Kerri Kanelos, September 5th 2007

The Fence: A New Place of Power for Bisexual Women (Various Issues)

admin — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 11:38:00 +0000

By Cheryl Dobinson

Okay, I have a terrible confession to make: I have a very difficult time reading and enjoying zines. There are so many sub par zines on the market that I often get flustered and run to the nearest issue of Bitch instead. However, the second I read the mission statement of The Fence, I was smitten.

Created by Canadian writer Cheryl Dobinson, The Fence attempts to fill an enormous gap in the GLBTQ community—the voices of bisexual women. The mission statement reads: “Calling bisexuals ‘fencesitters’ has been a way of marginalizing us, of placing us outside gay/lesbian and straight cultures by saying that we haven’t made a decision about our sexuality. The Fence is all about bisexual women reclaiming this position and speaking from our unique viewpoints that traverse straight and gay/lesbian cultures, but also allows us to have spaces of our own. The Fence can be a positive and powerful place, and this zine is for the women who have decided to stay there.” Swoon! The publication also welcomes discussions and contributions from genderqueer and transfolk.

Each issue of this zine presents thoughtful, moving contributions from talented writers, illustrators, poets and other bi women who have important things to say. I carried each issue with me as I devoured them one at a time, marking passages that required more thought, chuckling at comics featuring Steven Seagal (guess you had to be there) and wiping away tears after reading passages that resonate a little too closely to my own experiences. Most of all, I felt overjoyed to find a zine that represents a population of the GLBTQ community that is often represented as second-class citizens in mainstream gay publications.

If I had to offer one criticism of The Fence, it would be that I would love to read more contributions about bisexual women in popular culture because I believe that the media perpetuates many of the myths that keep bisexual women at the fringes of our society. Believe it or not, but Madonna and Britney Spears aren’t exactly positive role models for the bisexual community. For more information about The Fence, or to contribute to the publication, visit their website.

Written by: Kerri Kanelos, June 14th 2007

New Cultural Studies: Adventures in Theory

admin — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 19:35:00 +0000

Edited by Gary Hall, Clare Birchall

University of Georgia Press

New Cultural Studies is an exciting call to action from writers concerned about the future of the field of cultural studies. Since cultural studies is ever living and should be evolving along with other subjects, we must never stop developing new theories and using cultural studies as a framework about contemporary issues in politics, economics, the media, etc. This text looks beyond the distinguished Birmingham School’s theoretical work toward today’s greatest minds, such as Alain Badiou, Giorgio Agamben and Gilles Deleuze. Chapters are dedicated to cultural studies in the context of subjects such as Deconstruction, Post-Marxism, Ethics, German Media Theory, Anti-Capitalism, New Media and the Posthumanities.

In the place where a reader can usually find a book’s introduction, Hall and Birchall present the first chapter: "New Cultural Studies: Adventures in Theory (Some Comments, Clarifications, Explanations, Observations, Recommendations, Remarks, Statements, and Suggestions)." This section provides an invaluable text for anyone interested in the future of cultural studies, particularly those interested in working in academia. The authors’ summary of the ten reasons why “the time is right to move ‘beyond theory’” by itself is worth the price of the book. The chapter by Joanna Zylinska on cultural studies and ethics is also phenomenal; she opens up a much-needed dialogue about how people on the Left can respond to “the moralization of politics.” As a graduate student studying gender and cultural studies, I felt so fortunate to have read this book because it enlightened me about so many facets and theorists in the field that I had previously never come across.

Written by: Kerri Kanelos, June 13th 2007

Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics

admin — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 12:53:00 +0000

By Jennifer Baumgardner

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

In Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics, Jennifer Baumgardner, co-author of third wave bestsellers Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future and Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism, discusses the increasingly popular decision of women to date members of both sexes and the ties that bisexuality has to feminism. Part personal memoir, part social commentary, Look Both Ways allows the women that Baumgardner included in the book to talk openly about their sexuality and explore the potential boundaries put up by patriarchy and politics.

Baumgardner is an entertaining and engaging writer especially as she shares her own personal relationships with both men and women—including Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls. I was touched by many of her personal stories, particularly her concerns about losing the camaraderie that she had built with GLBT and feminist audiences when she transitioned from dating a woman to dating a man. The stigma that bisexual women are only adequate when single or when dating other women continues to be an issue. She also includes valuable reflections from second wave feminists who joined the women’s rights movement and, in turn, fell in love with other women in the sisterhood. An entire chapter is dedicated to folk-rock goddess Ani DiFranco, who is considered one of the greatest bisexual role models for other women who “look both ways.”

I applaud this book because it fills an enormous void in the mainstream publishing world and in our dialogue on sexuality, as a whole. Bisexual women are virtually invisible in our society—unless you count media stunts such as Madonna and Britney’s lip lock on MTV. According to Baumgardner, bisexual women serve a very important purpose in the gay rights movement because they stand on both sides of the gay/straight divide. Bisexuals understand the heterosexual privilege that comes with dating men and the injustices that often occur when they look the other way. I am sure that many will lament the omission of certain topics (such as the role of bisexual men in our society), but I can only hope that this book becomes as equally important and personally transformative as Baumgardner's other feminist texts.

Written by: Kerri Kanelos, March 19th 2007