"Riot Grrrls, Zines and Twenty Year of Activism" with Alison Piepmeier will be presented at Coastal Carolina University on Thursday, March 20, at 4:30 p.m. in the James J. Johnson Auditorium. This event is free and open to the public; tickets are not required.

Piepmeier, associate professor of English and director of the Women's and Gender Studies Program at the College of Charleston, will give the presentation on the activism movement.

In the early 1990s, young women calling themselves "riot grrrls" published funky, handmade, photocopied booklets documenting their wide range of experiences. The publication of these zines gave a rise to the third wave feminist movement. Today, zines are created by girls contesting beauty norms, expressing their motherly delight and rage, and speaking out as victims of sexual assault, along with addressing controversial issues. Piepmeier will describe the important role of zines in this interactive presentation.

Piepmeier is author of "Girl Zines: Making Media, Doing Feminism," the first academic study of zines by girls and women. She is also co-editor of "Catching a Wave: Reclaiming Feminism for the 21st Century," a collection that is widely taught in women's studies classes, and author of "Out in Public: Configurations of Women's Bodies in Nineteenth-Century America." She also has served as a member of the Governing Council of the National Women's Studies Association. She earned a bachelor's degree in English from Tennessee Technological University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in English from Vanderbilt University.

The Johnson Auditorium is located in the E. Craig Wall Sr. College of Business Administration, located at 119 Chanticleer Drive E. in Conway.

For more information, contact Angela Fitzpatrick, assistant director of Women's and Gender Studies, at afitzpatr@coastal.edu or 843-349-4051.