Public Affairs: Politics in the Age of Sex Scandals

Public affairs-or sex scandals-involving prominent politicians are as revealing of American culture as they are of individual peccadillos. Implicated in their unfolding are a broad range of institutions, trends, questions, and struggles, including political parties, Hollywood, the Christian right, new communications technologies, the restructuring of corporate media, feminist and civil rights debates, and the meaning of public life in the "society of the spectacle." The contributors to Public Affairs examine, from a variety of perspectives, how political sex scandals take shape, gain momentum, and alter the U.S. political and cultural landscape.

The essays in Public Affairs reflect on a number of sex scandals while emphasizing the Clinton/Lewinsky affair, certainly the most avidly followed and momentous sex scandal in American political history. Leading scholars situate contemporary public affairs in the context not only of earlier sex scandals in American politics (such as Thomas Jefferson's and Sally Hemings's affair), but also of more purely political scandals (including Teapot Dome and Watergate) and sex scandals centered around public figures other than politicians (such as the actor Hugh Grant and the minister Jimmy Swaggart). Some essays consider the Clinton affair in light of feminist and anti-racist politics, while others discuss the dynamics of scandals as major media events. By charting a critical path through the muck of scandal rather than around it, Public Affairs illuminates why sex scandals have become such a prominent feature of American public life.

Contributors. Paul Apostolidis, Jodi Dean, Joshua Gamson, Theodore J. Lowi, Joshua D. Rothman, George Shulman, Anna Marie Smith, Jeremy Varon, Juliet A. Williams

Author: Paul Apostolidis
Publisher: Duke University Press
Published: 01/14/2004
Pages: 288
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.76lbs
Size: 8.42h x 5.66w x 0.68d
ISBN: 9780822332657

Review Citation(s):
Choice 01/01/2005 pg. 936

About the Author

Paul Apostolidis is Associate Professor of Politics at Whitman College. He is the author of Stations of the Cross: Adorno and Christian Right Radio, published by Duke University Press.

Juliet A. Williams is Assistant Professor in the Law and Society and Women's Studies Programs at the University of California, Santa Barbara.