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Feminist Interrogations of Women's Head Hair: Crown of Glory and Shame
edited by Sigal Barak-Brandes & Amit Kama (2018). Routledge.
https://www.routledge.com/Feminist-Interrogations-of-Womens-Head-Hair-Crown-of-Glory-and-Shame/Barak-Brandes-Kama/p/book/9781138581418
Hair constitutes a neglected means of symbolic communication: it relays vital information about one's identity, taste, and status. Cultures, societies, and religions ascribe certain modes of hair styling and shearing. Hair is thus a construct of cultural and social dictates. This is particualry pertinent to women and girls whose hair is considerd to be both a source and an expression of glory and shame. Feminist Interrogations of Women's Head Hair: Crown of Glory and Shame brings new focus to this underrepresented topic through its intersections with contemporary socio-cultural contexts within the larger frame of feminist scholarship.
The anthology contains chapters by scholars from a wide range of disciplines who investigate private and public meanings associated with female head hair, problematising our assumptions about its role and implications in the 21st Century. Readers are invited to reflect on the use of hair in popular culture, such as children’s television and pop album artwork, as well as in work by women artists. Studies examine the lived experiences of women from a range of backgrounds and histories, including curly-haired women in Israel, African American women during the American Civil Rights Movements and self-identified lesbians in France. Other essays interrogate the connotations of women’s head hair in relation to body image, religion and aging.
Feminist Interrogations of Women's Head Hair: Crown of Glory and Shame brings together cultural discourses and the lived experiences of women, across time and place, to reveal the complex and ever-evolving significance of women's hair. It is an important contribution to the critical feminist thought in media studies, fashion studies, African American studies, queer theory, gender studies, gerontology, and cultural studies.
Sigal Barak-Brandes is a Lecturer at Tel Aviv University, Israel. Her research interests include: gender representations, media images and ideologies of motherhood, women and girls audiences, girls' images, girls and Facebook, media and crime victims. She has published in international journals such as Communication, Culture & Critique, Feminist Media Studies, The Communication Review, European Journal of Cultural Studies.
Amit Kama is a Senior Lecturer at Yezreel Valley Academic College, Israel. His research focuses on minority groups – particularly, gay men and lesbians, people with disabilities, and migrant workers and immigrants – and the construction of their identities vis-?-vis mediated representations. In the past decade he has been studying cultural constructions and manifestations of the body. His works include numerous papers published in international and Israeli peer-reviewed journals as well as five books published in Israel. He is a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of LGBT Youth and Media Frame
Download File (opens in a new tab) My new book:
Through the Transparent Closet: LGBT in the Kibbutz
edited by Sigal Barak-Brandes & Amit Kama (2018). Routledge.
https://www.routledge.com/Feminist-Interrogations-of-Womens-Head-Hair-Crown-of-Glory-and-Shame/Barak-Brandes-Kama/p/book/9781138581418
Hair constitutes a neglected means of symbolic communication: it relays vital information about one's identity, taste, and status. Cultures, societies, and religions ascribe certain modes of hair styling and shearing. Hair is thus a construct of cultural and social dictates. This is particualry pertinent to women and girls whose hair is considerd to be both a source and an expression of glory and shame. Feminist Interrogations of Women's Head Hair: Crown of Glory and Shame brings new focus to this underrepresented topic through its intersections with contemporary socio-cultural contexts within the larger frame of feminist scholarship.
The anthology contains chapters by scholars from a wide range of disciplines who investigate private and public meanings associated with female head hair, problematising our assumptions about its role and implications in the 21st Century. Readers are invited to reflect on the use of hair in popular culture, such as children’s television and pop album artwork, as well as in work by women artists. Studies examine the lived experiences of women from a range of backgrounds and histories, including curly-haired women in Israel, African American women during the American Civil Rights Movements and self-identified lesbians in France. Other essays interrogate the connotations of women’s head hair in relation to body image, religion and aging.
Feminist Interrogations of Women's Head Hair: Crown of Glory and Shame brings together cultural discourses and the lived experiences of women, across time and place, to reveal the complex and ever-evolving significance of women's hair. It is an important contribution to the critical feminist thought in media studies, fashion studies, African American studies, queer theory, gender studies, gerontology, and cultural studies.
Sigal Barak-Brandes is a Lecturer at Tel Aviv University, Israel. Her research interests include: gender representations, media images and ideologies of motherhood, women and girls audiences, girls' images, girls and Facebook, media and crime victims. She has published in international journals such as Communication, Culture & Critique, Feminist Media Studies, The Communication Review, European Journal of Cultural Studies.
Amit Kama is a Senior Lecturer at Yezreel Valley Academic College, Israel. His research focuses on minority groups – particularly, gay men and lesbians, people with disabilities, and migrant workers and immigrants – and the construction of their identities vis-?-vis mediated representations. In the past decade he has been studying cultural constructions and manifestations of the body. His works include numerous papers published in international and Israeli peer-reviewed journals as well as five books published in Israel. He is a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of LGBT Youth and Media Frame
Download File (opens in a new tab) My new book:
Through the Transparent Closet: LGBT in the Kibbutz