The Library launches a new film series showcasing the diverse roles of girls in cinematic storytelling with the dark, deadpan, strikingly original portrait of teen alienation Ghost World (2001; R), starring Thora Birch and Scarlett Johannsen.

The University of Missouri-Kansas City’s Erin Hamer-Beck and the Library’s director of readers’ services, Kaite Stover, lead a subsequent discussion.

The Girlhood and Cinema series explores how adolescent girls use media to tell their stories and how social and other influences help frame the girls’ perception and narrative. Hamer-Beck is a communications studies instructor at UMKC, lecturer in the Liberal Arts Department at the Kansas City Art Institute, and an English instructor at Metropolitan Community College-Longview.