The Starr Report Disrobed

The Starr Report Disrobed
Author :
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Total Pages : 211
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780231502627
ISBN-13 : 0231502621
Rating : 4/5 (27 Downloads)

Book Synopsis The Starr Report Disrobed by : Fedwa Malti-Douglas

Download or read book The Starr Report Disrobed written by Fedwa Malti-Douglas and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2000-08-02 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "What is this strange book" asks Fedwa Malti-Douglas, "that can bring the American presidency to its knees?" In this probing study of Kenneth W. Starr's influential and historic work, she reveals how The Starr Report exposed the cultural tendencies, desires, and taboos of Americans while it disrobed the most powerful man in the world. Unveiling the political and ideological implications of the report's relentless pursuit of corporeal and prurient detail, Malti-Douglas underscores the document's ground-breaking nature—both for its legal and cultural content. What does the report imply about American values when it repeatedly points to the dates on which trysts occurred? Why does gender seem so unstable in the report? And how do such varied objects as Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass or Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon or a Hugo Boss tie or Vox, a novel about phone sex, fit into the legal discourse of the report? Fraught with assumptions about gender and sexuality, the report reflects a strategy to use Clinton's "body natural" to undermine his "body politic."


The Starr Report Disrobed Related Books