Brooks Lecture Focuses on Young Women’s Empowerment Culture

02/02/2010 

Caroline Kaltefleiter, an associate professor of communication studies at SUNY Cortland, will give a talk on “Riot Grrrl,” a girl-centered social movement that started in Olympia, Wash., in the 1990s and has expanded globally, on Wednesday, Feb. 10, at the College.

The lecture, titled “Revolution Girl Style Now: The Riot Grrrl Network and the Coalesce of Girls’ Studies,” begins at 4:30 p.m. in Moffett Center, Room 2127, and is free and open to the public. A reception to welcome her starts at 4 p.m. in the Rozanne M. Brooks Museum, located in Moffett Center, Room 2126.

Her talk, which is free and open to the public, is part of the Rozanne M. Brooks Lecture Series at SUNY Cortland for the 2009-10 academic year, encompassing the theme of “Women’s Worlds.”

The movement’s intentional misspelling of the word girl as “grrrl” signifies an angry growl, arguing for a powerful state of being and empowerment for young women, Kaltefleiter said.

“Riot Grrrl continues to intrigue scholars and activists for its past and current campaigns promoting girl empowerment,” observed Kaltefleiter, who is working on a book titled, Revolution Girl Style Now: The Evolution of the Music, Media, Culture and Identity Politics of the Riot Grrrl Movement. “Prior studies remain confined to an outside/in perspective. In contrast, my book confronts scholars who acknowledge the discord between ‘speaking about’ Riot Grrrls and ‘speaking for them.’”

Members of the movement produce fanzines (zines), which are small, independently published magazines, handwritten or computer generated, Kaltefleiter explained. Zines are crafted with paper, scissors, tape, glue and staples. They are intended to be physically handled and to be passed from person to person. Kaltefleiter’s talk underscores the significance of zines.

 “In fact, most zines were produced as collage projects to be exchanged like pen pal letters, not for mass distribution or financial profit,” Kaltefleiter said. “Experiencing zines — turning pages to reveal intimate secrets, graphics and poetry — is imperative to my analysis. I will focus on zines that address gender crossing and international grrrl/girl activism.

“Aesthetically, zines are part of an alternative print youth culture,” she noted. “Studying the print and material nature of zines as opposed to digital surrogates is essential. Zines not only document but also illuminate the activism that permeated out of the Riot Grrrl movement.

“In the early 1990s, young women were confronted daily with media coverage of the Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill hearings, the O.J. trial and a barrage of heroin-chic, thin Kate Moss fashion advertisements. Riot Grrrls responded to such mainstream depictions of girls/women in society by interrogating class structures and traditional sex roles through alternative publications, reclaimed vintage fashion, music production and gender-crossing demonstrations.

“My work represents the culmination of nearly two decades of scholarly research and personal involvement, as the movement was getting under way. As a member of the Riot Grrrl D.C. chapter, I witnessed firsthand the revolution of a girl-centered subculture that motivated so many girls, 12 to 25, to find a voice — speaking out about personal tragedies, local inequalities and international atrocities.”

This social movement among young women was the focus of Kaltefleiter’s doctoral thesis, which she obtained in journalism and mass communication from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, in 1996. She has a graduate certificate in gender and women’s studies from Ohio University and a master’s degree in mass communication from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where she was a graduate fellow in the Center for Cultural Studies. She received her bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism from the University of Georgia.

Kaltefleiter, who joined SUNY Cortland in 2001, has coordinated the Women’s Studies Program since 2004. She chaired the Communication Studies Department from 2001-04. Kaltefleiter is a producer of radio programming on NPR affiliate station WSUC-FM at SUNY Cortland. Her program, “The Digital Divide,” explores issues of new technology and youth culture, and she frequently discusses girls and technology on the program.

Before joining the College, she served as chair and associate professor of mass communication at Morningside College in Iowa.

The lecture series honors the late Rozanne M. Brooks, a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor and SUNY Cortland professor emerita of sociology/anthropology. A SUNY Cortland faculty member for 36 years, Brooks died in 1997.

The series is sponsored by a grant from Auxiliary Services Corporation (ASC). For more information, contact organizer Sharon R. Steadman, SUNY Cortland associate professor of sociology and anthropology and coordinator of the International Studies Program, at (607) 753-2726.