Description
Book SynopsisCollection of essays analyzing political sex scandals and U.S. political culture from a variety of theoretical angles
Trade Review“People interested in political theory, political culture, mass media, and civil liberties will find this a most interesting and provocative volume. Informed by a diversity of theoretical frames,
Public Affairs also offers several unifying themes, including the difficulty of drawing bright-line boundaries between the ‘public’ and ‘private’ realms.”—Norman L. Rosenberg, author of
Protecting the Best Men: An Interpretive History of the Law of Libel“Public Affairs is a lively, timely exploration of sex scandals and their significance to a democratic public. A provocative joining of cultural studies to political science, this collection is especially important to feminist scholars for its examination of the ways that scandals redefine the public/private distinction. It will also challenge scholars of democracy for its stimulating treatment of scandal and citizen agency.”—Lisa Disch, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii
Introduction: Sex Scandals and Discourses of Power / Paul Apostolidis and Juliet A. Williams 1
1. Sex Scandals in U.S. Politics: Theoretical, Social, and Historical Contexts
Normal Sins: Sex Scandal Narratives as Institutional Morality Tales / Joshua Gamson 39
Power and Corruption: Political Competition and the Scandal Market / Theodore J. Lowi 69
Hardly Sallygate: Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings, and the Sex Scandal That Wasn't / Joshua D. Rothman 101
2. Class, Race, and Gender in the Clinton Scandal
On "The Dalliances of the Commander in Chief": Christian Right Scandal Narratives in Post-Fordist America / Paul Apostolidis 137
Narrating Clinton's Impeachment: Race, the Right, and Allegories of the Sixties / George Shulman 167
Sexual Risk Management in the Clinton White House / Anna Marie Smith 185
3. Privacy and Publicity, and the Conditions of Democratic Citizenship
Privacy in the (Too Much) Information Age / Juliet A. Williams 213
It Was the Spectacle, Stupid: The Clinton-Lewinsky-Starr Affair and the Politics of the Gaze / Jeremy Varon 232
Making (It) Public / Jodi Dean 259
Notes on Contributors 273
Index 275
