Media Spectacles by Marjorie Garber; Jann Matlock; Rebecca L. Walkowitz

Coverage of such major news events as the Gulf War, the AIDS epidemic and the William Kennedy Smith rape trial is analysed by contributors who explore the languages of word and image that produce current events as spectacle.

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Contents: Body and soul murder : JFK / Michael Rogin -- Character assassination : Shakespeare, Anita Hill, and JFK / Marjorie Garber -- Reproducing reality : Murphy Brown and illegitimate politics / Rebecca L. Walkowitz -- Watching and authorizing the Gulf War / Elaine Scarry -- 'No bad nigger' : Blacks as the ethical principle in the movies / K. Anthony Appiah -- Cortez in the courts : the traps of translation from newsprint to film / Doris Sommer -- Power shortages : the Soviet coup and Hurricane Bob / Svetlana Boym -- Scandals of naming : the blue blob, identity, and gender in the William Kennedy Smith Case / Jann Matlock -- Lesbian spectacles : reading Sula, Passing, Thelma and Louise, and The accused / Barbara Johnson -- Throwing up/going down : Bushusuru; or, the fall of the West / Lee Edelman -- Monsters of perversion : Jeffrey Dahmer and The silence of the lambs / Diana Fuss -- Grafting David Cronenberg : monstrosity, AIDS media, nation/sexual difference / Andrew Parker -- Kimberly Bergalis, AIDS, and the plague metaphor / Katharine Park -- Accommodating Magic / Douglas Crimp