Description

Universities are unlikely venues for grading bodies, beauty, poise, and style. Nonetheless, thousands of college women have sought not only college diplomas but campus beauty titles and tiaras throughout the twentieth century, and the cultural power of beauty pageants continues into the twenty-first.

In Queens of Academe, Karen W. Tice asks how, and why, does higher education remain in the beauty and body business and with what effects on student bodies and identities. Drawing on archival research and interviews as well as hundreds of hours observing college pageants on predominantly black and white campuses, Tice argues the pageants help to illuminate the shifting iterations of class, race, religion, culture, sexuality, and gender braided into campus rituals and student life. Moving beyond a binary of objectification versus empowerment, Tice offers a nuanced analysis of the making of idealized collegiate masculinities and femininities, and the stylization of higher education itself.

Features

• Provides a lively and nuanced look at a major institution of college campus life.
• Brings together popular culture practice within theories of gender, race, ethnicity, and class.

Reviews

"This is the first book to provide a complete history of campus beauty contests and their deep embedding in American life, as we strive to provide ways in which young women can fulfill themselves. Whether we condemn judging women by beauty standards or understand that this imperative goes back to the ancient Greeks, we know that beauty and its manifestations drive our culture as much as athletic contests and games."
--Lois Banner, University of Southern California

"Queens of Academe unearths the fascinating past and explores the complicated present of campus beauty pageants. Through nuanced analysis of the dynamics of class and race, Tice skillfully critiques celebrations of consumption and competition as forms of women's empowerment and provides a timely and fascinating perspective on entrepreneurial conservative Christianity. Karen Tice shows us that campus pageants are the ideal place to view the neoliberal transformation of the university."
--Maxine Craig, University of California - Davis

"This book is ethnography at its best. Karen Tice takes her readers into the lively world of campus beauty pageants from multiple vantage points. The book pulls back the curtain on the hidden curriculum of class, race, gender, and sexuality in college life and learning; the marketing of higher education; and how to use the study of campus culture as a teachable moment. It belongs on every college reading list."
--Wendy Luttrell, Graduate Center, City University of New York

Product Details

264 pages; 10 b/w halftones; 6-1/8 x 9-1/4; ISBN13: 978-0-19-984278-0ISBN10: 0-19-984278-7

About the Author(s)