@article{1480144,
      recid = {1480144},
      author = {Rubenstein, Diane, },
      title = {This Is Not a President : Sense, Nonsense, and the  American Political Imaginary /},
      pages = {1 online resource :},
      abstract = {Read The Chronicle of Higher Ed Author InterviewIn This Is  Not a President, Diane Rubenstein looks at the postmodern  presidency - from Reagan and George H. W. Bush, through the  current administration, and including Hillary. Focusing on  those seemingly inexplicable gaps or blind spots in recent  American presidential politics, Rubenstein interrogates  symptomatic moments in political rhetoric, popular culture,  and presidential behavior to elucidate profound and  disturbing changes in the American presidency and the way  it embodies a national imaginary.In a series of essays  written in real time over the past four presidential  administrations, Rubenstein traces the vernacular use of  the American presidency (as currency, as grist for popular  biography, as fictional TV material) to explore the ways in  which the American presidency functions as a "transitional  object" that allows the American citizen to meet or  discover the president while going about her everyday life.  The book argues that it is French theory - primarily  Lacanian psychoanalysis and the radical semiotic theories  of Jean Baudrillard - that best accounts for American  political life today. Through episodes as diverse as Iran  Contra, George H. W. Bush vomiting in Japan, the 1992  Republican convention, the failed nomination of Lani  Guinier, and the Iraq War, This Is Not a President  brilliantly situates our collective investment in American  political culture.},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/1480144},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9780814777312.001.0001},
}