Description
Book SynopsisFocusing on those seemingly inexplicable gaps or blind spots in recent American presidential politics, the author 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.
Trade ReviewIn a series of bravura performances, Rubenstein reads presidents through Baudrillard and Lacan, providing at once a narrative of the administrations and . . . the field's development over the past two decades. * American Quarterly *
Rubenstein is without rival in her brilliant use of psychoanalytic theory for political science. No one since Michael Rogin has written so incisively about the American presidency and American popular culture. This Is Not a President radically transforms ones understanding of American political discourse. -- Anne Norton,University of Pennsylvania
A provocative analysis of the place of the U.S. presidency in contemporary times. . . . Recommended. * Choice *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments 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
