With the tomboy figure currently operating in a liminal space between extinction and resurgence, Reclaiming the Tomboy: The Body, Identity, and Representation is an unabashed celebration of her rebellious, independent, and pioneering spirit. This collection examines the tomboy as she appears throughout history, in the arts and in real-life. It also addresses how she has changed over the centuries, adapting to the world around her and breaking new boundaries in new ways (sometimes with a "simple" selfie). While this collection addresses the claim of the tomboy as being antiquated or even "problematic," it more vigorously offers examples of where she is thriving and benefiting from her tomboy identity. Ultimately, this book underscores the tomboy's legacy as well as why she is still relevant, if not needed, today.

Starting with the figure of the bold, boisterous girl in the mid-19th century and ending with the “girl power” movement of the 1990’s, Tomboys is the first full-length critical study of this gender-bending code of female conduct. Michelle Abate uncovers the origins, charts the trajectory, and traces the literary and cultural transformations that the concept of “tomboy” has undergone in the United States. Abate focuses on literature including Louisa May Alcott's Little Women and Carson McCullers's The Member of the Wedding and films such as Peter Bogdanovich's Paper Moon and Jon Avnet's Fried Green Tomatoes. She also draws onlesser-known texts like E.D.E.N. Southworth's once wildly popular 1859 novel The Hidden Hand, Cold War lesbian pulp fiction, and New Queer Cinema from the 1990s. Tomboys also explores the gender and sexual dynamics of tomboyism, and offers intriguing discussions of race and ethnicity's role in the construction of the enduring cultural archetype. Abate’s insightful analysis provides useful, thought-provoking connections between different literary works and eras. The result demystifies this cultural phenomenon and challenges readers to consider tomboys in a whole new light.

Do you want to climb a mountain? Drive a fire engine? Become prime minister? Join the girls in the pages of this book to see the incredible things they do every day and find out what you might like to do, too! A picture book for every girl with a dream.

Growing up, Liz Prince wasn't a girly girl, but she wasn't exactly one of the guys either (as she learned when her little league baseball coach exiled her to the distant outfield). She was somewhere in between. But with the forces of middle school, high school, parents, friendship, and romance pulling her this way and that, the middle wasn't an easy place to be. Tomboy follows award-winning author and artist Liz Prince through her early years and explores--with humor, honesty, and poignancy--what it means to "be a girl." From staunchly refuting "girliness" to the point of misogyny, to discovering through the punk community that your identity is whatever you make of it, Tomboy offers a sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking account of self-discovery in modern America.

Doing Gender in Media, Art and Culture is an introductory text for students specialising in gender studies. The truly interdisciplinary and intergenerational approach bridges the gap between humanities and the social sciences, and it showcases the academic and social context in which gender studies has evolved. Complex contemporary phenomena such as globalisation, neo-liberalism and 'fundamentalism' are addressed that stir up new questions relevant to the study of culture. This vibrant and wide-ranging collection of essays is essential reading for anyone in need of an accessible but sophisticated guide to the very latest issues and concepts within gender studies. 'Doing Gender in Media, Art, and Culture' is an indispensable introduction to third wave feminism and contemporary gender studies. It is international in scope, multidisciplinary in method, and transmedial in coverage. It shows how far feminist theory has come since Simone de Beauvoir's Second Sex and marks out clearly how much still needs to be done.'........Hayden White, Professor of Historical Studies, Emeritus, University of California, and Professor of Comparative Literature, Stanford University, US

The timely collection of essays is thematically unified around the subject of corporeality. Its theoretical underpinnings emerge out of feminist, foucauldian, patristic and queer hermeneutics. The book is organized into categories specific to transformation, spirit versus body, discourse, and source material. More than one essay focuses on female bodies and on the monstrous or evil body. While Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is central to most analyses, authors also cover The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, and material in The History of Middle-earth.