“Girls just wanna have fun”: Exploring girlhood through magazines and print culture

Thursday 30 October | 9am PT | 11am CT | 12noon ET | 4pm GMT

What does fun really mean in the context of girlhood? Beyond leisure, it can signal self-expression, resistance, and autonomy, while also being dismissed as frivolous.

Join Natalie Coulter, York University, Toronto and AM’s Emily Stallworthy as they examine how magazines in the UK, US, and Australia shaped and reflected ideas of girlhood throughout the twentieth century. Drawing on AM’s new primary source collection, Girlhood: Magazines and Print Culture, the session will show how content analysis reveals shifting notions of fun, girlhood, and cultural identity.

Key topics include:

• Content analysis as a powerful tool for cultural and media research
• Magazines as rich archives for understanding changing ideas of girlhood
• The opportunities Girlhood: Magazines and Print Culture offers for teaching and original research

This webinar provides fresh perspectives on how girlhood has been represented, contested, and reimagined across time and highlights new ways to use magazines as windows into identity and social change.

Register here