Art School Grrls Hack the Girl Culture Final

Abstract

Since 2008 I have had the pleasure of teaching Girl Culture at California College of the Arts (CCA), a private art/design college located in the San Francisco Bay Area. This article features student zines from Girl Culture at this college. Girl Culture is part of the school’s general studies curriculum in the Humanities and Sciences at the upper division (junior and senior) level. The course title comes from Sherrie Inness’s foundational anthology defining American Girlhood Studies in the twentieth century, Delinquents and Debutantes (1998), in which she notes,"Too often girls’ culture is shunted aside by scholars as less significant or less important than the study of adult women’s issues, but girls’ culture is what helps to create not just an individual woman but all women in our society. (11, emphasis in original)"Girl Culture explores the myriad forces that have an impact on American girls’ lives today and seeks to identify the places where artists and designers can best advocate for girl-centric liberation, autonomy, and joy.