The Queen of America Goes to Washington City: Essays on Sex and Citizenship (Series Q) [Paperback]

Lauren Berlant (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 17, 1997 | ISBN-10: 0822319241 | ISBN-13: 978-0822319245

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.
Drawing on literature, the law, and popular media, The Queen of America Goes to Washington City is a stunning and major statement about the nation and its citizens in an age of mass mediation. As it opens a critical space for new theory of agency, its narratives and gallery of images will challenge readers to rethink what it means to be American and to seek salvation in its promise.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Assailing the privatization of citizenship and the idealization of the citizen as a child, Berlant (English, Univ. of Chicago) criticizes a national political discourse that has shifted from public-sphere issues like economic inequities to the private realm of sexual intimacy. Berlant argues that the Reagan revolution based the redefinition of citizenship and national identity on a politicized private sphere overseen by a federal government increasingly less committed to social justice. She illustrates her argument with examples from television programs such as The Simpsons and the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill congressional hearings. Still, she does not adequately explore whether the privatization of citizenship has occurred because historically white, middle-class American male heterosexism has been so pervasive. A scholarly study; recommended for academic collections in American culture studies.?Charles L. Lumpkins, Bloomsburg Univ. Lib., Pa.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

“Berlant offers a trenchant genealogy of the imaginary realm of citizenship, resituating cultural contests over sex, race, and nation as conflicts over the defining fantasies of public life. Few cultural critics move with as much skill and insight between debates over the public sphere and how best to read pornography. This text links the analytic concerns of cultural studies with the fugitive struggles over the imaginable bounds of citizenship. A keen and disarming book.”—Judith Butler

“Taking her (counter)cue from that celebrated sitcom of American life, ‘The Reagan Years,’ Lauren Berlant makes an exhilarating argument for a theory of ‘comedic’ citizenship. What happens when the collusive myths of the ‘common culture’ become obsessed and estranged by the fraying and freeing of the American people—plurally identified, demographically diverse, sexually ambivalent, culturally mongrel? Berlant’s wit and insight lie in going with the ‘silliness’ of everyday existence, inhabiting its persuasive, popular forms, and then, in ways you least expect, throwing up a devastating picture of the way we live now.”—Homi K. Bhabha

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Duke University Press Books (April 17, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0822319241
• ISBN-13: 978-0822319245
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #208,137 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #31 in Books > Gay & Lesbian > Nonfiction > Civil Rights

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22 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Can Lisa Simpson Save Us From Our Cultural Baby-Craze?, September 18, 2001

By 

Brian Almquist "-baa-" (Iowa City, IA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Queen of America Goes to Washington City: Essays on Sex and Citizenship (Series Q) (Paperback)

Lauren Berlant's book contains a series of essays concerning issues of sex and citizenship, though it may be a bit too much to hope that each section deals with both topics. The title itself refers to a cultural perception of innocence and how it relates to the seat of state power. Of course, power corrupts and innocence is tainted, disillusioned.

As with most texts of this type, a careful reading of the introduction will acquaint the reader with the author's ideas and intentions. This is important, because it is likely that in readinging the essays that constitute the majority of the remainder of the book, it is entirely possible to lose track of these ideas. The reward-to-effort involved in reading these essays is minimal, and I felt ripped off. It is also important to check the footnotes: Berlant hides some useful information that adds light to her story (such as the fact that Newt Gingrich not-very-noisily encouraged Republicans to become less hostile to gays).

In her essays, Berlant uses a wide variety of source documents -- her "archive" -- to provide the cues for her analysis. She picks and chooses context at will: The fact that The Simpsons' format requires all characters to forgo any growth is ignored (Lisa couldn't end an episode embittered against the structures of state power, even if it would be appropriate), but factors the creators have no control over (the local TV station places a military recruitment ad in a broadcast of a syndicated episode) are noted. The extreme selectivity of her sources, in my eyes, makes many of her conclusions suspect. In a few other cases, such as when she looks at the cover stories of several issues of TIME magazine to find messages about immigration and citizenship, her selections seem most appropriate.

Each reader will probably have their own sense of how well Berlant chose her source material. Since "your mileage may vary," I will list several chapters along with the sources chosen.

1 - "The Theory of Infantile Citizenship" - Audre Lorde's childhood trip to D.C., an episode of The Simpsons ("Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington"), the movie IN COUNTRY. Also, the movies MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON and THE LITTLEST REBEL provide further context for the critique of The Simpsons episode. Are sweet, innocent little children the ideal citizens? Even if they ask a presidential candidate what type of underwear he wears?

2 - "Live Sex Acts" - This analysis over various censorship controversies looks at the pivotal figures in the debates from the late 80s and early 90s. Former NEA director John Frohmeyer's memoir LEAVING TOWN ALIVE; some NEA projects, like the zines LIVE SEX ACTS and QUEER CITY; anti-porn criticism from the likes of Andrea Dworkin and the Meese Commision; Tipper Gore's HOW TO RAISE PG KIDS IN AN X-RATED SOCIETY (and I was just beginning to like her again after the election) and a variety of images of Jerry Falwell. Gotta keep those little kids sweet and innocent.

3 - "America, 'Fat,' and the Fetus" - If sweet, innocent little children are ideal citizens, what does that make fetuses? Berlant takes on the nations fetus fetish, and it isn't pretty. The archive includes the movies ONCE AROUND, LOOK WHO'S TALKING (and its first sequel) and INNERSPACE; pro-Life propaganda like THE SILENT SCREAM and THE ECLIPSE OF REASON; Raymond Carver's story "Fat"; two episodes of I LOVE LUCY concerning Lucy's pregnancy; LIFE magazine's famous pre-natal imagery; and, finally, videotapes of Berlant's nephew, covering his sonogram, birth, and first birthday.

It kind of goes on like that, but further highlights include the return of The Simpsons when Queer Bart is taken up as a gay icon, pilgrimages to the capitol by slaves, fictitious and real, and a "gallery" of images related to the topics of the essays, including the, uh, bracing cover to Tom Ace's magazine. [....] I would not recommend Berlant's book to non-academic types. Trying to apply Berlant's reasoning to items other than her "archives" might be asking for trouble, and her prose is often tedious in its construction. Further, some of her archive material and topicality seems unfortunately dated. I've been told this is some of Berlant's most clear and incisive writing, which strikes me as kind of sad.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Do TV shows define your life?, February 19, 2006

By 

Bradley Gardner "no one important" (Santa Clara, California United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Queen of America Goes to Washington City: Essays on Sex and Citizenship (Series Q) (Paperback)

While Berlant is quite definatly a good cultural theorist, the type of work she does is problematic. This book regularly tries to define a national mindset in relation to the productions of a small number of people. While one might be able to analyze any number of the texts mentioned in this book, Berlant insists on saying that these texts relate to a particular way of thinking that are shared by at least a majority of our population (enough to elect republicans to the presidency). She repeatedly uses really loaded/offensive terms, which can be fun if you politically agree with her (for instance patriotism=infantile citizenship, heterosexuality=dead sexuality), but if you disagree even slightly with her they seem mostly like bullying. While I'm rather left leaning, the core of her arguement, that right leaning people vote more based on emotions rather than well thought out ideas, I find to be mostly baseless (I think a misunderstanding of economics and international politics are the reason people vote republican... or immense wealth). Since most of the textual examples she uses I don't think can ever adequatly stand for the majority of the people she claims they represent, and are more caricatures of poltical discourse (which of course most political discourse is) rather than actual personal poltics, her work comes across as being based on a confusion of aggressiveness and refrences to Lacan with strong theorizing.

Unless you want to get into arguements with friends who really like this book, I'd pass it up if I were you.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant book that does work that needs doing., January 24, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Queen of America Goes to Washington City: Essays on Sex and Citizenship (Series Q) (Paperback)

This book masters the art of doing politics and cultural critique at the same time and it does it with an honesty and pedagogical clarity I have never seen before. Ranging across archives from mass culture to political rhetoric, Berlant does the very hard work of thinking things through in all their complexity (things like the mutual imbrications of nationalism, gender, class, and race)and she does it with writing that has both the stunning beauty of the perfect description and the too-true turn of phrase and the cutting clarity of thoughts that reverberate through the everyday sensibilities of current life in the USA.