| Our Monica, Ourselves: The Clinton Affair and the National Interest (Sexual Cultures) |  | Authors: Lauren Berlant, Lisa Duggan
Publisher: NYU Press
Category: Book
Buy New: $65.00
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Rating:  1 reviews
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 320
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 0814798659
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.929092
EAN: 9780814798652
ASIN: 0814798659
Publication Date: March 1, 2001
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
"This set of 18 essays offers a variety of interesting commentaries a 'progressive forum' on the Clinton sex scandal. . . . The collection includes (in part) ruminations on body imagery, the idea of 'the Jewess,' the association of sexual recklessness with notions of race and class, the peculiarities of Clinton's politics (as well as his personal behavior) that made him vulnerable to such an attack, and the implications for Clinton's (reluctant) feminist supporters."
—Library Journal "The book contains more than its share of smart writing"
—Salon.com Alongside the O.J. Simpson trial, the affair between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky now stands as the seminal cultural event of the 90s. Alternatively transfixed and repelled by this sexual scandal, confusion still reigns over its meanings and implications. How are we to make sense of a tale that is often wild and bizarre, yet replete with serious political and cultural implications? Our Monica, Ourselves provides a forum for thinking through the cultural, political, and public policy issues raised by the investigation, publicity, and Congressional impeachment proceedings surrounding the affair. It pulls this spectacle out of the framework provided by the conventions of the corporate news media, with its particular notions of what constitutes a newsworthy event. Drawing from a broad range of scholars, Our Monica, Ourselves considers Monica Lewinsky's Jewishness, Linda Tripp's face, the President's penis, the role of shame in public discourse, and what it's like to have sex as the president, as well as specific legal and historical issues at stake in the impeachment of Bill Clinton. Thoughtful but accessible, immediate yet far reaching, Our Monica, Ourselves will change the way we think about the Clinton affair, while helping us reimagine culture and politics writ large. Contributors include: Lauren Berlant, Eric O. Clarke, Ann Cvetkovich, Simone Weil Davis, Lisa Duggan, Jane Gallop, Marjorie Garber, Janet R. Jakobsen, James R. Kincaid, Laura Kipnis, Tomasz Kitlinski, Pawel Leszkowicz, Joe Lockard, Catharine Lumby, Toby Miller, Dana D. Nelson, Anna Marie Smith, Ellen Willis, and Eli Zaretsky.
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| Customer Reviews:
Making postmodernism fun March 10, 2005
Merope (New Mexico, USA)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is a book of multiple essays written by various academics about the Clinton - Lewinsky imbroglio. It has an aura of the absurd for the non-academic... these folks take the discourse over this seemingly nonsensical moment in American history VERY seriously indeed. Linda Tripp, Ken Starr's pornography, the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, the Meaning of Monica are all explored in a pastiche of Freud, Foucault and Derrida. Most of the essays are both humorous and academic, and are therefore easy to digest for beleaguered graduate students and tenured types with tired eyes.
There is much liberal invective underlying most of the analyses, however, and much sadness over the passing of the progressive liberalism of the 1960s. Clinton's (Bill, that is) fundamental conservatism is ignored in place of the social meaning of his sexual behavior and the public's reaction to it. Interestingly, none of the essays analyze the obvious: the sexual entitlement mentality of Southern men or the bizarre reaction of mainstream feminists to the scandal: they vilified the women involved rather than the men, reaffirming their cooption by the "ruling classes" that feminists for years have claimed affected only conservative sociopaths like Phyllis Schlafly. The resolution of the impeachment is only briefly touched on ... sadly... since to me that was the most interesting part of the whole drama.
There is room, now that time has passed and a new era of social conservatism seems to have ushered in, for further analysis of what exactly the sexual discourse was during the Clinton years and the broader meaning of the impeachment. I would encourage this same group to follow up Our Monica Ourselves with another volume, eschewing, perhaps, the invective and embracing a more scholarly distance from the subject matter.
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