Deny All Knowledge: Reading the X-Files (The Television Series) (Paperback)

~ (Editor), Angela Hague (Editor), Marla Cartwright (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

The "X Files" is as complex and controversial a phenomenon as the television series "Twin Peaks" was in the early 1990s. Mysterious and macabre episodes, led by fictional FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, captivate devotees week after week. Contributors to this volume examine the same intricate storylines that challenge viewers. Theoretically sophisticated, however, this book provides a forum for the creative process and a discussion of the state of popular culture as a whole. Part police drama, part horror story, and part science fiction, the show has dared to suggest with great seriousness the incredible charge that the United States government is involved in a vast conspiracy with former Nazi and Japanese scientists to assist alien beings in peforming experiments - including genetic hybridisation - on American citizens. Why does a hit series happen when it does? Is there a connection between the coming and going of "Twin Peaks" and the Bush presidency? It the "X Files" a Clinton-era phenomenon, a product of historical, cultural and psychological factors operative in the mid 1990s? Armed with an arsenal of critical methodology, contributors deal with these and many more topics, among them: folklore and myth; the development of cult TV; the show as a manifestation of a major sea of change in the nature of mass communication; cultural dialogue about law and order, freedom and safety, truth and lies; various feminist interpretations; and finally, drawing on sources as diverse as Foucault, Sartre, and Lacan, the essays examine the show from adaptations of body invasion and vampirism and modern horror films to psychoanalysis and semiotic structuralism. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: Syracuse University Press (November 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0815604076
• ISBN-13: 978-0815604075
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,178,961 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The truth is in here..., February 27, 2000

By	Wai Mun Yoon (London, England) - See all my reviews

It is impossible for any urban dweller not to notice the vast array of merchandising that has sprouted from the success of the television show, "The X-Files". That is, of course, the point. Urban dwellers, aged eighteen- to forty-nine comprise a "quality demographic" in the surveys of advertising executives and have therefore become the contemporary focus of television producers, as we are told by Jimmie Reeves in his essay "Rewriting Popularity", one of the collection edited by David Lavery, professor of English at Middle Tennessee State University.

"Deny all knowledge: Reading the X-Files" is in part an attempt to capture a section of that demographic. However, a swift perusal of other material on offer at your local X-Files vendor (pusher?) reveals that this understated volume might well have been misplaced from its original shelf, nestled between Lacan and Levi-Strauss. There are no photos (save for a semi-abstract 'flying saucer' on the cover), no celebrity interviews, no episode synopses. It seems that this tries, much like the foisting of Gregorian chant on a classically-naïve public, to sneak in some 'highbrow' material on the crest of a wave of immense popularity.

In large part, the cult-nature of the X-Files has been fostered by the presence of an active on-line community, many of whom are academics. It is perhaps to this audience that the volume is aimed. What better way to combine work and play?

The passion of the authors is undeniable and all of the essays display extensive familiarity and understanding of the series. They are not grounded by the need to justify the existence of the X-Files phenomenon, nor are they constrained by the necessity to interweave their subject matter with perceived fan interest.

Leslie Jones' excellent essay on myth and folklore in the X-Files is lightly-tinged with humour while providing a fascinating account of Indo-European mythology. Further gems are found in Reeves, Rogers and Epstein's history lessons on the development of cult-TV, which rationalises the ascent of this media-format in terms of political and economic change. Allison Graham's description of the evolution of conspiracy-theory consciousness and Michele Malach's chronicle of the change in representation of the FBI-man in popular culture both provide historical detail whilst using the X-Files legitimately as subtext. This type of lateral-thinking exercise for the intelligent reader, supported by reasoned argument (and copious footnotes) is both stimulating and informative.

Less enlightening are the often partisan accounts mired in psychoanalytic theory, which can leave the lay-reader reeling from the non-intuitive terminology. A case in point is the piece by Lisa Parks which reads rather like an answer to the examination question: "Discuss Haraway's proposition of female as cyborg with reference to 'The X-Files'".

Since the breadth of material covered and implied by the X-Files as-a-series is large, it is also dismaying to see that over a third of the essays in this volume have gender as subtext. Certainly, the series has been noted for its iconoclastic representation of gender stereotypes, but one well-written overview would have sufficed, instead of four rather specialised arguments. Thankfully, the editors have seen fit to consign most of these pieces to the latter part of the book, where those of a sturdy constitution may see fit to venture. (A remark which would probably be characterised as supportive of the patriarchal Symbolic Order)

Academic essays are not ostensibly intended to entertain. They may provide a corpus of knowledge on which other academics may draw, but this cross-fertilisation is dependent on an assumed understanding of the established language. In spite of this, many of the academics represented here are also good writers; their ability to communicate clearly obviates the need to take refuge in received semiotics. For the rest, their assumptions of knowledge in this volume mirror an aspect of on-line X-philia described by Susan Clerc: "to those who have been around, Frequently Asked Questions can be extremely annoying. They want to discuss the series, not basic questions that have already been compiled and answered by dedicated fans in FAQ files. To newcomers, this attitude reeks of elitism and snobbery." Perhaps Professor Lavery should maintain an FAQ.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Academic yet entertaining., November 30, 1998

By	[e-mail] (Florida) - See all my reviews

At first glace this book seems overwrought with metaphors and overblown interpretations of the show; these authors delve into details that I, as the most avid of fans, would never have noticed. If you are willing to put this aside, and enjoy it for what it is, this is a must have for fans you want more than the trivialities found in many of the other unauthorized books out there. The take on the Mulder/Scully relationship is interesting to say the least, and it provides a look at the online fan base like so few of the other books have. The essay on gender liminality was a highlight. The footnotes were excessive in many segments, but this book wasn't intended to be a purely fun read. If you want trivia and Mulderisms you might do better to try one of the other books, there are many great ones out there. If you like a slightly more weighted look at television, and are not afraid of "big words" than you will probably get a kick out of this.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A Waste of Wood Pulp, April 20, 1997

By A Customer

This book is another example of "scholars" cashing in on popular culture. The back of the book calls the authors "all well-respected scholars," yet many of them are graduate students who have never published before! The book is also full of obivous factual errors that any serious student of the X-Files will recognize immediately. As an X-Files fan and an academic, I am both disappointed and offended by the poor quality of this book. The one part of the book worth reading is the intriguing Lacanian analysis in the last article, but that alone does not begin to justify the publication of the book. The X-Files deserves a serious scholarly examination--this is not it