Title The queen of America goes to Washington city : essays on sex and citizenship / Lauren Berlant

Published Durham, NC : Duke University Press, 1997 ©1997

Click on the following:
ProQuest Ebook Central

Copies

Description 1 online resource (viii, 308 pages) : illustrations Series Series Q Series Q. Contents Introduction : the intimate public sphere -- 1. The theory of infantile citizenship -- 2. Live sex acts (parental advisory: explicit material) -- 3. America, "fat," the fetus -- 4. Queer nationality (written with Elizabeth Freeman) -- 5. The face of America and the state of emergency -- 6. The face of America goes to Washington city : notes on diva citizenship -- 7. Outtakes from the citizenship museum Summary In The Queen of America Goes to Washington City, Lauren Berlant focuses on the need to revitalize public life and political agency in the United States. Delivering a devastating critique of contemporary discourses of American citizenship, she addresses the triumph of the idea of private life over that of public life borne in the right-wing agenda of the Reagan revolution. By beaming light onto the idealized images and narratives about sex and citizenship that now dominate the U.S. public sphere, Berlant argues that the political public sphere has become an intimate public sphere. She asks why the contemporary ideal of citizenship is measured by personal and private acts and values rather than civic acts, and the ideal citizen has become one who, paradoxically, cannot yet act as a citizen -- epitomized by the American child and the American fetus. As Berlant traces the guiding images of U.S. citizenship through the process of privatization, she discusses the ideas of intimacy that have come to define national culture. From the fantasy of the American dream to the lessons of Forrest Gump, Lisa Simpson to Queer Nation, the reactionary culture of imperilled privilege to the testimony of Anita Hill, Berlant charts the landscape of American politics and culture. She examines the consequences of a shrinking and privatized concept of citizenship on increasing class, racial, sexual, and gender animosity and explores the contradictions of a conservative politics that maintains the sacredness of privacy, the virtue of the free market, and the immorality of state overregulation -- except when it comes to issues of intimacy. -- Publisher description Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 289-302) and index Notes Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL English digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL Print version record Subject Political participation -- United States Political culture -- United States Conservatism -- United States Citizenship -- Social aspects -- United States Intimacy (Psychology) -- Political aspects -- United States Sex customs -- Political aspects -- United States Social values -- Political aspects -- United States POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Political Freedom & Security -- Civil Rights. POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Political Freedom & Security -- Human Rights. POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Civil Rights. Citizenship -- Social aspects Conservatism Intimacy (Psychology) -- Political aspects Political culture Political participation Sex customs -- Political aspects Social values -- Political aspects Nationalbewusstsein Öffentlichkeit Privatsphäre Bürger Seksuele moraal. Sociale identiteit. Burgerschap. United States USA Genre/Form essays. Essays Essays. Essais. Form Electronic book LC no. 96035146 ISBN 9780822398639 082239863X 130670944X 9781306709446

  Permalink