About the Author

Hilarie Ashton is a Ph.D candidate in the CUNY Graduate Center's English department. Combining American studies, Black studies, cultural and media studies, gender studies, and queer studies, her work focuses on feminist and critical race approaches to cultural analysis. Her dissertation, "Unsung Heroines in Black and White: Sixties Girl Groups as Sonic Rock Rebellion," positions the Ronettes, the Shangri-Las, and the Chiffons as both creatively and sonically radical. She has published her academic work in a variety of journals, including Style and the South Atlantic Review, and her freelance writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Believer, Ms., and NPR's Turn the Tables series.