Redefining a Movement: The Riot Grrrl Collection at Fales Library

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many figures cited as influences on Riot Grrrl.

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 The difference 

between the Riot Grrrl Collection at Fales Library and existing 

collections of Riot Grrrl related materials at Barnard College and 

Duke University, then, exists in not only the types of materials 

these collections house (the papers and artifacts of individuals 

versus documents always already intended for public or semi-

public circulation, such as zines) but also the histories these col-

lections hold the potential to advance. Thus, while preservation 

remains the central goal of the Riot Grrrl Collection, the col-

lection also serves other purposes: most notably to legitimize 

materials that may otherwise slip into historical oblivion and 

to authorize them as cultural rather than exclusively subcultural 

products and more significantly to validate the materials as cul-

tural products with a particular lineage in an urban twentieth-

century North American artistic and literary avant-garde.

Archive Viral

Past attempts to develop archival collections dedicated to 

women and the women’s movement have met considerable resis-

tance. By comparison, the development of the Riot Grrrl Col-

lection solicited little criticism. Nevertheless, the first response 

to the announcement on the L Magazine website read, “At what 

point does this become ridiculous?”

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 Reactions to the provoca-

tion were uniformly critical of the writer’s implied accusation 

that the Riot Grrrl papers do not merit archivization. As the first 

response asked, “Why look down your nose at this? It seems per-

fectly reasonable to me that this stuff would wind up in a library. 

You can’t study feminism in 2010 (or 2005 or 1995, for that mat-

ter) and not talk about Hanna and the Riot Grrrl movement.”

17

 

Subsequent responses on the L Magazine website and other blogs 

reiterated the fact that the collection is one of historical signifi-

cance. For example, two weeks after the L Magazine announce-

ment, the following blog post appeared on Jukebox Heroines:

I have been trying to get copies of Kathleen Hanna’s, as 

well as, other Riot Grrrls zines from eBay and such, with 

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some success. I mean, since they were photocopyed, you 

can make more, but after a while, the copies of copies of 

copies get rather hard to read. I am so happy that Riot 

Grrrl and the movement is getting some credit from the 

academic side. I mean they have for a bit, some texts have 

been written about it, but preserving these documents 

ensures it will never be forgotten!

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Like earlier responses on the L Magazine website, Emily’s post 

emphasizes the historical significance of Riot Grrrl. Her post 

also suggests that, despite the fact that a zine, for example, may 

continue to be copied and even sold on eBay for an indefinite 

period of time, there is an integrity to the original and that 

“originals” may be important, even in movements where appro-

priation and copying are integral and celebrated practices. 

Defenses of the Riot Grrrl Collection’s relevance were by no 

means limited to those rooted in making a case for the histori-

cal significance of the materials in their original form. In the 

days following the media leak, affective attachments to the 

papers being processed at Fales Library also came to the sur-

face. Another participant in the spontaneous debate on the L 

Magazine website replied, “I applaud the NYU Library for tak-

ing the feminist movement and the L Magazine theory seriously, 

and am thrilled to see such a crucial part of my history, and 

countless others, illuminated by critical thought and inquiry. 

Not because we need the academy to validate who are . . . but 

because it’s an historical moment in time worth knowing about” 

(emphasis my own).

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 Feelings of personal attachment are also 

expressed in Macy Halford’s op-ed piece published as part of 

“The Book Bench” column in The New Yorker:

I’m extremely happy that the papers of Kathleen Hanna—

Riot Grrrl, Bikini Killer, Le Tigress—are going to the 

growing Riot Grrrl archive at N.Y.U.’s Fales Library. Happy 

because I live in New York and I might be able to think up 

a reason to gain access (I’m not in the academy, but would 

that stop any self-respecting grrrl?), and happier because 

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redefining a movement  /  93

it represents a major step toward overcoming the sticky 

formulation

Girl = Dumb, Girl = Bad, Girl = Weak

as Hanna and her sisters put it in the Riot Grrrl Manifesto, 

first published in 1991 in “Bikini Kill Zine 2.”

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Halford assumes that the Riot Grrrl Collection will become 

a destination for researchers and fans and thus serve as Riot 

Grrrl’s equivalent to, let’s say, Graceland. This assumption is 

shared by Alyx Vesey. In a post about the collection on Femi-

nist Music Geek, Vesey enthused, “it’s with great excitement that 

I report that Kathleen Hanna is donating her personal papers 

to NYU’s Fales Library for their Riot Grrrl Collection (which I 

didn’t know they had) . . . Looks like this moi has got some inde-

pendent research to do. See you in the stacks.”

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While these comments represent only a few of the hundreds 

of responses posted online in the wake of the Riot Grrrl Col-

lection’s announcement, they are representive of the public 

reaction to news of the collection’s development. First, despite 

the critique expressed in the initial response to the L Magazine 

article, the collection solicited few questions about whose his-

tory and what types of history count. The absence of negative 

responses to the collection’s development suggests not only that 

Riot Grrrl’s legacy may already be well recognized (at least in 

some contexts) but also that both inside and outside the academy 

there is a growing recognition that histories of minorities, activ-

ist movements, and subcultures are histories worth preserving. 

The initial response to the Riot Grrrl Collection also revealed 

that it is by no means a typical archival collection (despite its 

similarities to existing collections at Fales Library).

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 In contrast 

to most collections, for example, the papers and artifacts in 

question belong to not only living writers, performers, and art-

ists but also women writers, performers, and artists who are, for 

all extensive purposes, still early in their careers.

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 In addition, 

it is significant that the excitement about the papers’ arrival in 

the archive was shared by academic researchers, fans and people 

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