ABOUT THIS BOOK

You are girlish, our images tell us. You are plastic. Girlhood and the Plastic Image explains how, revealing the increasing girlishness of contemporary media. The figure of the girl has long been prized for its mutability, for the assumed instability and flexibility of the not-yet-woman. The plasticity of girlish identity has met its match in the plastic world of digital art and cinema. A richly satisfying interdisciplinary study showing girlish transformation to be a widespread condition of mediation, Girlhood and the Plastic Image explores how and why our images promise us the adaptability of youth. This original and engaging study will appeal to a broad interdisciplinary audience including scholars of media studies, film studies, art history, and women’s studies.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

HEATHER WARREN-CROW is assistant professor of interdisciplinary arts at Texas Tech University. She is a media theorist and performance artist.

REVIEWS

“A timely and provocative contribution to both girls studies and media studies. Girlhood ant the Plastic Image takes the powerful modern image of the adolescent girl as a new entry point for discussing the relations between gender, identity, and new media. In the process, this book troubles hierarchies at the heart of new media studies and questions some of girls studies’ central identity claims.”—Catherine Driscoll, associate professor of gender and cultural studies, University of Sydney

"Heather Warren-Crow eloquently demonstrates that girlhood is central to discourse about digital media. This provocative and original book illuminates the many ways in which our understanding of digital images is shaped by notions of age and gender. Girlhood and the Plastic Image is an important contribution to both girlhood studies and the study of digital media.”—Kristen Hatch, assistant professor of film and media studies, University of California, Irvine

"Warren-Crow offers a unique analysis of images of girlhood and the plasticity of digital media. Her critique begins by expanding and explaining Lev Manovich’s five principles of new media, as outlined in his benchmark The Language of New Media. . . . The author’s conflation of plasticity and variability allows her to propose a double articulation of the ways in which female identity and "girlhood" are subject to an intensified form of mutability and instability in the new media age. The book is suggested for anyone interested in merging conversations of feminism, visual culture, and new media studies. . . . Recommended.”—Choice

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments • Preface • (Un)Doing Girlishness • Sharing Girlishness • Networking Girlishness • Exporting Girlishness • Afterword • Notes • Bibliography • Index