Susan Bordo

The months between the presidential election of 2016 and the summer of 2019 have been a wild ride, from the unexpected (and for many traumatic) results of the election to growing recognition of how profoundly the Trump presidency has changed our lives, from discoveries of corruption and foreign influence on our democratic institutions to fresh assaults on reproductive rights, the Brett Kavanaugh hearings and the #MeToo movement, Robert Mueller’s long-awaited report and its aftermath, and the beginnings of the 2020 primary contest. Follow cultural historian and media critic Susan Bordo through those events as they happened, in a book whose format is uniquely designed to capture their immediacy. Notable pieces include “Reflections on Trump’s Inauguration,” inspired by an exchange of looks between Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton; “To the Core” recalls both the Anita Hill hearings and Bordo’s own experience with sexual harassment in the context of #MeToo; “Please Mr. Prosecutor Mueller” is a personal plea as well as an argument about the power of television; “My MSNBC Interview” finds the author perched on a high stool in a local TV studio, talking about her just-published book on the election, finding out what it feels like to be misunderstood on national television; “Imagine Bernie Sanders as a Woman” confronts the double-standards and double-binds faced not only by female politicians but by all women who are seen as “leaning in” too much, while “Two Elizabeths” explores how the Tudor queen and the presidential contender negotiate those challenges in their differing historical contexts. Combining full-length published pieces with spontaneous, unfiltered, never-before published posts, in a voice that is bracingly honest as well as critically penetrating, this collection goes beyond journalistic conventions to reveal the ways in which the political is indeed the personal.

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