The Queen of America Goes To Washington City

Essays on Sex and Citizenship

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by Lauren Berlant

Duke University Press

Due/Published May 1997, 336 pages, paper

ISBN 0822319241

Yet another chance to describe this book. I wish I could just tell you to read it. Here is a book that gives as clear-eyed view of the state of politics/culture in America today as I have seen in a long time. I could talk about the great quotes from Homi Bhabha and Judith Butler, or the chapter on the episode of The Simpsons where Lisa goes to Washington, or I could even go into Berlant's ideas about how the notion of the public sphere in which adults at least in some sense could expect to be measured as citizens in terms of civic acts has been replaced via the agenda of the Reagan revolution, by an intimate public sphere in which citizenship is now measured by personal and private acts, to the point, in fact, where the ideal citizen is now epitomized by the American child and the American fetus. I could do that, but would that tell you how, when I read this book, it made me, on almost every page, sit up and not only think about what was being said, but the way in which images and objects with which I am very familiar were being used to show me something that suddenly made a whole lot of sense.

"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

Review

Berlant takes a critical and provocative look at the state of public life in America today. Though many of the issues here might seem as if they have been exhausted, Berlant brings a sharp eye and wit to her study, drawing on literature, the law, and popular media to analyze the status of citizenship in America. Central to Berlant’s argument is the triumph of private life, which has made the notion of an engaged public life something to be avoided and even suspicious of. The shift in American life is, in part, a result of the right-wing revolution of the Reagan years and the growing fears of many citizens who feel increasingly displaced in American society. Berlant argues that the “iconic” citizen, i.e., white middle-class family, has come to define citizenship terms of a nostalgic return to the virtues of family life (Berlant sees the popularity of "Forrest Gump" as an especially indicative example). This in turn has focused attention on private behavior and has become the barometer for citizenship, creating an increased animosity along class, racial, sexual and gender lines and led to an obsession in our culture with “intimate” matters, such as homosexuality, the testimony of Anita Hill.

Homi Bhabha writes, “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.”