1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910781839603321

Autore

Rubenstein Diane <1953->

Titolo

This is not a president [[electronic resource] ] : sense, nonsense, and the American political imaginary / / Diane Rubenstein

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York, : New York University Press, c2008

ISBN

0-8147-7731-7

0-8147-7620-5

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (313 p.)

Disciplina

973.920922

Soggetti

Presidents - United States

Political culture - United States

Popular culture - United States

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 237-291) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Introduction: my own private presidents -- Organizational note -- The mirror of reproduction: Baudrillard and Reagan's America -- Oliver North and the lying nose -- This is not a president: Baudrillard, Bush, and enchanted simulation -- Bush, the man who Sununu too much: male trouble and presidential subjectivity -- "Chicks with dicks": transgendering the presidency -- "Honey, I shrunk the president": psychoanalysis, postmodernism, and the Clinton presidency -- "Father, can't you see I'm bombing?" A Bush family romance -- Hillary regained -- Notes -- Index -- About the author.

Sommario/riassunto

Read The Chronicle of Higher Ed Author InterviewIn This Is Not a President, Diane Rubenstein looks at the postmodern presidency - from Reagan and George H. W. Bush, through the current administration, and including Hillary. Focusing on those seemingly inexplicable gaps or blind spots in recent American presidential politics, Rubenstein interrogates symptomatic moments in political rhetoric, popular culture, and presidential behavior to elucidate profound and disturbing changes in the American presidency and the way it embodies a national imaginary.In a series of essays written in real time over the past four presidential administrations, Rubenstein traces the vernacular use of the American presidency (as currency, as grist for popular biography,



as fictional TV material) to explore the ways in which the American presidency functions as a “transitional object” that allows the American citizen to meet or discover the president while going about her everyday life. The book argues that it is French theory - primarily Lacanian psychoanalysis and the radical semiotic theories of Jean Baudrillard - that best accounts for American political life today. Through episodes as diverse as Iran Contra, George H. W. Bush vomiting in Japan, the 1992 Republican convention, the failed nomination of Lani Guinier, and the Iraq War, This Is Not a President brilliantly situates our collective investment in American political culture.