Promotional Information

This richly illustrated history of the pin-up since its birth more than 150 years ago reveals how the development of the pin-up is intimately connected to the history of feminism

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Defining/Defending the "Feminist Pin-Up" 1
1. Representing "Awarishness": The Theatrical Origins of the Feminist Pin-Up Girl 27
2. New Women for the New Century: Feminism and the Pin-Up at the Fin de Siècle 69
3. The Return of the Theatrical Feminism: Early-Twentieth-Century Pin-Ups on the State, Street, and Screen 115
4. Celebrating the "Kind of Girl Who Dominates": Film Fanzines and the Feminist Pin-Up 142
5. New Frontiers: Sex, Women, and World War II 185
6. Pop Goes the Pin-Up: New Roles and Readings in the Wake of Women's Liberation 232
7. Our Bodies/Ourselves: Pin-Ups in the Wake of Women's Liberation 268
8. From Womyn to Grrrls: The Postmodern Feminist Pin-Up 311
Conclusion/Commencement 355
Notes 365
Bibliography 403
Index 437

About the Author

Maria Elena Buszek is Assistant Professor of Art History at the Kansas City Art Institute and a regular contributor to Bust magazine.

Reviews

"Pin-ups that women love? That they create? Yes! In her brilliantly vibrant debut book, Maria Elena Buszek gives a lucid, rich, and thorough account of a nineteenth- and twentieth-century history in which women employ the power of erotic imagery to celebrate themselves. From the writing to the reproductions, Pin-up Grrrls is eye-opening." Joanna Frueh, performance artist and author of Swooning Beauty: A Memoir of Pleasure "Pin-Up Grrrls is a funny, sexy, political take on the pin-up. In this book, women flaunt their sexuality, use images of themselves to their own ends, and remake the pin-up genre in endlessly creative ways."--Susie Bright, author of Mommy's Little Girl: On Sex, Motherhood, Porn, and Cherry Pie "One brand of contemporary feminism casts women as external victims: all sex is rape, apparently, and all representations of female sexuality are merely for the delectation of men. Pin-Up Grrrls challenges this one dimensional view, showing how feminism and the pin-up--to some extent at least--walked hand in hand."--Times Literary Supplement, 3 November 2006