NEW BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT

New Book Announcement

Feminist Interrogations of Women's Head Hair: Crown of Glory and Shame
edited by Sigal Barak-Brandes & Amit Kama (2018). Routledge. 
https://www.routledge.com/Feminist-Interrogations-of-Womens-Head-Hair-Crown-
of-Glory-and-Shame/Barak-Brandes-Kama/p/book/9781138581418


Hair constitutes a neglected means of symbolic communication: it relays
vital information about one's identity, taste, and status. Cultures,
societies, and religions ascribe certain modes of hair styling and shearing.
Hair is thus a construct of cultural and social dictates. This is
particularly pertinent to women and girls whose hair is considered to be
both a source and an expression of glory and shame. Feminist Interrogations
of Women's Head Hair: Crown of Glory and Shame brings new focus to this
underrepresented topic through its intersections with contemporary
socio-cultural contexts within the larger frame of feminist scholarship.  

The anthology contains chapters by scholars from a wide range of disciplines
who investigate private and public meanings associated with female head
hair, problematizing our assumptions about its role and implications in the
21st Century. Readers are invited to reflect on the use of hair in popular
culture, such as children's television and pop album artwork, as well as in
work by women artists. Studies examine the lived experiences of women from a
range of backgrounds and histories, including curly-haired women in Israel,
African American women during the American Civil Rights Movements and
self-identified lesbians in France. Other essays interrogate the
connotations of women's head hair in relation to body image, religion and
aging. 

Feminist Interrogations of Women's Head Hair: Crown of Glory and Shame
brings together cultural discourses and the lived experiences of women,
across time and place, to reveal the complex and ever-evolving significance
of women's hair. It is an important contribution to the critical feminist
thought in media studies, fashion studies, African American studies, queer
theory, gender studies, gerontology, and cultural studies.

Sigal Barak-Brandes, PhD, is a lecturer at Tel Aviv University, Israel. 

Amit Kama, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Communication,
Yezreel Valley Academic College, Israel. 

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