Crossroads in Cultural Studies Conference 14-17th December 2016 Program Index

8H Representation and Resistance: Identity Construction and Identity Politics Across Digital Platforms (Chair,
Karin Zhu)
Tisha Dejmanee The Next Tavi: Teen Fashion Bloggers and Postfeminist Girlhood
Postfeminism espouses a model of “can do” girlhood (Harris, 2004), emphasising the responsibility for ideal
female subjects to manage and plan their lives and engage in careerism from an early age. This ideal of
girlhood is captured in the figure of the precocious teen fashion blogger, who is able to strategically deploy
the blog platform and the brand of girlhood into an entrepreneurial opportunity. I use platform and visual
analysis to examine three fashion blogs – Tavi Gevinson’s Style Rookie, Ophelia Horton’s Who’s That Girl?
and Paolina’s Callur Villade – and discuss the ways that they implicate young women’s digital media
production with the new visibility of girlhood as a lucrative marketing opportunity. This relationship is
further complicated by the explicit links made between creative young girlhood and the nascent popular
feminist movement.
Cynthia Wang Asian American Musicians and Digital Transnationalism
Asian America exists in the liminal space between America and Asia, belonging and foreign, visibility and
invisibility, with the potential to participate in powerful diasporic networks. Asian American musicians have
been able to capitalize on this “straddling” of two cultures, through the use of digital platforms like
Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Kickstarter that encourage transmediated approaches to music
distribution. These musicians use digital platforms to reach niche audiences and create substantial fan bases
that subvert traditional power structures in creative production. Specifically, this paper explores how
musicians create new transnational identities through the use of new technologies of production and
distribution that transcend pre-existing borders of culture, identity, and nationality. How are Asian and
American identities negotiated through the migratory flow of bodies, cultures, and ideas in an increasingly
globalized world enabled by digital media?
Flemming Rhode
“Crunchy Mamas” and Online Scientific Controversy
This paper examines the rise of the “crunchy mama” as a model of contemporary motherhood that
emphasises a radical stance against the State and corporations on pseudo-scientific public controversies
such as the link between vaccines and autism, and the health problems of genetically modified food. I
explore this issue through the online debate on GMO foods between blogger Vani Hari – known by online
pseudonym Food Babe – and Yvette d’Entremont – known as SciBabe. This debate illustrates the
argumentative currency of constructed online femininity, as digital media platforms favour new sources of
authoritative knowledge based on feminised personal experience. Inversely, the popularity of the Food Babe
brand illuminates the limitations scientists face in intervening in public controversies on a platform that
favours expressions of intimacy and authenticity.
8I
Chrononormativity, Biopolitics, and the Generation of Gender and Sexuality (Chair, Rillark Bolton)
Mary Lou Rasmussen* & Deana Leahy
An Australian story
Chrononormativity/antinormativity and counterpublic sexuality education:
In the 1980s there was a veritable explosion of talk about gay men, anal sex and AIDS. People, including
school students, were perceived as in need of sexuality education because everybody was viewed as
potentially “at risk” of HIV and death. New resources became available because of a health imperative. As
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