Girlhood, Beauty Pageants, and Power: Trailer Park Royalty

ISBN-13: 9781433113475 / Angielski / Miękka / 2018 / 178 str.

Elisabeth B. Thompson-Hardy

Opis

Child beauty pageants are a phenomenon in rural communities throughout the American South. Girlhood, Beauty Pageants and Power: Trailer Park Royalty explores the participants who compete in these pageants and shows that most are from the lower socio-economic bracket. A bricolage of post-structural feminism, critical ethnographies, critical hermeneutics, and cultural studies lenses analyzes how the performances of participants and the power exercised by the beauty pageant culture work to formulate girls' identities. Analysis in Girlhood, Beauty Pageants and Power will also include how power operated to perpetuate this subculture and its right to dictate norms for beauty and acceptance and will be situated in the culture of girlhood. Examination of what is depicted in popular culture through film, videos, documentaries, and television shows will also add to the dialogue. I suggest that the rural beauty pageant culture does work to create girlhood identity and a way in which the participants view the world and themselves. In fact, I believe that the rural beauty pageant culture does intricate cultural work in terms of gender and class. This book is intended for students and teachers who are interested in dissecting rural girlhood and development, Southern American beauty standards, and the effect of the media on girls' identities.

Recenzje

"Occasionally a book like Girlhood, Beauty Pageants, and Power: Trailer Park Royalty appears and opens complicated conversations that are intriguing. Conceptualizations of female identity and beauty pageants dwell in this text within the context of Southern place. The analysis swirls with a bricolage of critical traditions. Elisabeth B. Thompson-Hardy deftly negotiates the relationships among language, social institutions, beauty pageants, subjectivity, class, power, and place. This book is a major contribution to fields as diverse as cultural studies, gender studies, and place studies. It is a first-rate scholarly contribution. Read it." -William M. Reynolds, Associate Professor of Curriculum, Foundations, & Reading, Georgia Southern University

Spis treści

Acknowledgements - Introduction - Rural Beauty Pageant Culture, Girlhood, and Power - Situating the Bricolage: Research and the Critical Tradition - Bricolage: Cultural Studies, Poststructural Feminism, and Poststructuralist Ethnography - Pageant Culture, Media, Social Class, and Power - Conclusions and Directions for Future Study.

O autorze

ELISABETH B. THOMPSON-HARDY received her Ed.D. in curriculum studies from Georgia Southern University in 2007. She has published with William Reynolds in Critical Studies of Southern Place: A Reader (Peter Lang, 2014) and has authored and co-authored articles on educational issues and cultural studies. Currently, she teaches English at North Augusta High School in South Carolina.