Our Monica, Ourselves: The Clinton Affair and the National Interest (Sexual Cultures) [Paperback]

Lauren Berlant (Editor), Lisa Duggan (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0814798640 | ISBN-13: 978-0814798645 | Publication Date: March 1, 2001

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Our Monica, Ourselves: The Clinton Affair and the National Interest, an anthology edited by Lauren Berlant (The Anatomy of National Fantasy), English professor and director of the Center for Gender Studies at the University of Chicago, and Lisa Duggan (Sapphic Slashers), associate professor of American Studies and History at New York University, "seeks a medium-range perspective offering reflective, after-the-fact assessments by politically progressive journalists, scholars, and activists." A dialogue between academics Tyler Curtain and Dana D. Nelson on "The Symbolics of Presidentialism," Simone Weil Davis's essay on a pornographic satire of presidential philandering and Catharine Lumby's exploration of "the relationship between the phallus and the organ it represents" exemplify some of this rigorous cultural criticism of intersections between politics and sensationalism.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Despite the silly title, this set of 18 essays offers a variety of interesting commentaries a "progressive forum" on the Clinton sex scandal. It comes out of the postmodern school, with an emphasis on cultural and queer theory; most of the contributors are professors of English or media studies. The breadth of the analysis provides more than the occasional insight and laugh. 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. Editors Berlant (English, Univ. of Chicago) and Duggan (American studies and history, New York Univ.) intend it as a "medium-range perspective," and many thoughtful readers will appreciate the nuanced approach. Recommended for large public and academic libraries. Cynthia Harrison, George Washington Univ., Washington, DC
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: NYU Press (March 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0814798640
• ISBN-13: 978-0814798645
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,470,618 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Making postmodernism fun, March 9, 2005

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Merope (New Mexico, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Our Monica, Ourselves: The Clinton Affair and the National Interest (Sexual Cultures) (Paperback)

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.