Mad Men, Mad World

Mad Men, Mad World

Sex, Politics, Style, and the 1960s

  • Author: Goodlad, Lauren M. E.; Kaganovsky, Lilya; Rushing, Robert A.
  • Publisher: Duke University Press
  • ISBN: 9780822354024
  • eISBN Pdf: 9780822399063
  • Place of publication:  Durham , United States
  • Year of digital publication: 2013
  • Month: March
  • Pages: 432
  • DDC: 791.45/72
  • Language: English
Since the show's debut in 2007, Mad Men has invited viewers to immerse themselves in the lush period settings, ruthless Madison Avenue advertising culture, and arresting characters at the center of its 1960s fictional world. Mad Men, Mad World is a comprehensive analysis of this groundbreaking TV series. Scholars from across the humanities consider the AMC drama from a fascinating array of perspectives, including fashion, history, architecture, civil rights, feminism, consumerism, art, cinema, and the serial format, as well as through theoretical frames such as critical race theory, gender, queer theory, global studies, and psychoanalysis.

In the introduction, the editors explore the show's popularity; its controversial representations of race, class, and gender; its powerful influence on aesthetics and style; and its unique use of period historicism and advertising as a way of speaking to our neoliberal moment. Mad Men, Mad World also includes an interview with Phil Abraham, an award-winning Mad Men director and cinematographer. Taken together, the essays demonstrate that understanding Mad Men means engaging the show not only as a reflection of the 1960s but also as a commentary on the present day.

Contributors. Michael Bérubé, Alexander Doty, Lauren M. E. Goodlad, Jim Hansen, Dianne Harris, Lynne Joyrich, Lilya Kaganovsky, Clarence Lang, Caroline Levine, Kent Ono, Dana Polan, Leslie Reagan, Mabel Rosenheck, Robert A. Rushing, Irene Small, Michael Szalay, Jeremy Varon

  • Contents
  • Acknowledgments
  • Introduction - Lauren M. E. Goodlad, Lilya Kaganovsky, Robert A. Rushing
  • Part I. Mad Worlds
    • One. Maddening Times Mad Men in Its History - Dana Polan
    • Two. Mad Space - Dianne Harris
    • Three. Representing the Mad Margins of the Early 1960s Northern Civil Rights and the Blues Idiom - CLarence Lang
    • Four. After the Sex, What? A Feminist Reading of Reproductive History in Mad Men - LesLie J. Reagan
    • Five. The Writer as Producer; or, The Hip Figure after HBO - MichaeL Szalay
  • Part II. Mad Aesthetics
    • Six. The Shock of the Banal Mad Men’s Progressive Realism - Caroline Levine
    • Seven. Mod Men - Jim Hansen
    • Eight. Swing Skirts and Swinging Singles Mad Men, Fashion, and Cultural Memory - Mabel Rosenheck
    • Nine. Against Depth Looking at Surface through the Kodak Carousel - Irene V. Small
    • Ten. “It Will Shock You How Much This Never Happened” Antonioni and Mad Men - Robert A. Rushing
  • Part III. Made Men
    • Eleven. Media Madness Multiple Identity (Dis)Orders in Mad Men - Lynne Joyrich
    • Twelve. “Maidenform" Masculinity as Masquerade - Lilya Kaganovsky
    • Thirteen. History Gets in Your Eyes Mad Men, Misrecognition, and the Masculine Mystique - Jeremy Varon
    • Fourteen. The Homosexual and the Single Girl - Alexander Doty
    • Fifteen. Mad Men’s Postracial Figuration of a Racial Past - Kent Ono
    • Sixteen. The Mad Men in the Attic Seriality and Identity in the Modern Babylon - Lauren M. E. Goodlad
  • Afterword. A Change Is Gonna Come, Same as It Ever Was - Michael Bérubé
  • Appendix A. A Conversation with Phil Abraham, Director and Cinematographer - Lauren M. E. Goodlad, Jeremy Varon, Carl Lehnen
  • Appendix B. List of Mad Men Episodes
  • Works Cited
  • Contributors
  • Index

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