The Cyndi Lauper affect: Bodies, girlhood and popular culture

Kristina Gottschall, Susanne Gannon, Jo Lampert, Kelli McGraw

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Abstract

Using a collective biography method informed by a Deleuzian theoretical approach(Davies and Gannon 2009, 2012), this article analyses embodied memories ofgirlhood becomings through affective engagements with resonating images inmedia and popular culture. In this approach to analysis we move beyond theimpasse in some feminist cultural studies where studies of popular culture havebeen understood through theories of representation and reception that retain asense of discrete subjectivity and linear effects. In these approaches, analysis focusesrespectively on decoding and deciphering images in terms of their normative andideological baggage, and, particularly with moving images, on psychological readings.Understanding bodies and popular culture through Deleuzian notions of“becomingâ€� and “assemblageâ€� opens possibilities for feminist researchers to considerthe ways in which bodies are not separate from images but are, rather, becomingsthat are known, felt, materialized and mobilized with/through images(Coleman 2008a, 2008b, 2008c, 2009, 2011; Ringrose and Coleman 2013). Wetease out the implications of this new approach to media affects through threememories of girls’ engagements with media images, reconceived as moments ofembodied being within affective flows of popular culture that might momentarilyextend upon ways of being and doing girlhood.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)30-45
Number of pages16
JournalGirlhood Studies
Volume6
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2013

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