The Queen of America Goes to Washington City

“A collection . . . that cohere[s] as a book through [the] collective deliberation on the new politics of an intimate public sphere—a sphere in which the public good is recognized only in the context of private worlds, normative sex acts, and a utopian obsession with sexual and social innocence that circumscribes the imaginative horizons of the national future.” - Robyn Wiegman, American Literature

“Berlant offers a cogent lexicon matched by sophisticated theoretical formulations that readers can easily adapt to propel their own projects forward. . . . [Berlant has an] uncanny ability to powerfully shuttle back and forth from race, to gender, to sexuality, to class and to other markers of difference that keep us from buying the dream of an imagined norm.” - José Esteban Muñoz, American Quarterly

“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

“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.” - Homi K. Bhabha