Frayed Edges: Mediating Women in Popular Culture

Abstract

A decade and a half ago, at my thesis defense, Dr. Marlene Kadar said: “your work is interdisciplinary, so it will always have frayed edges. That is part of the richness.” Dr. Kadar’s devotion to critical innovative groundbreaking scholarship—that aims to change lives and worldviews—honoring the messiness of the process, taught me to see the richness in the details, seek out the contradictions and paradoxes. My work tells the stories of how women are mediated, to open up larger questions about the mundane, everyday ways in which misogyny and racism are made normal and the complicated and conflicted manner in which popular culture tells these stories. My talk explores how my work lays bare the contingent, contextual and complex experiences of the women who inhabit popular media spaces and are the focus of my research, which is grounded in a Critical Cultural Studies tradition and propelled by early invaluable lessons from Dr. Kadar.