ABOUT THIS BOOK

Unraveling the intricate dance of pleasure and pain in contemporary American culture

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Christopher J. Gilbert is associate professor of English in Communication and Media at Assumption University and author of Caricature and National Character: The United States at War and When Comedy Goes Wrong. His work has also appeared in numerous journals.

John Louis Lucaites is professor emeritus of Rhetoric and Public Culture at Indiana University. He is author, coauthor, and editor of many works, most recently, The Public Image: Photography and Civic Spectatorship, coauthored with Robert Hariman.

REVIEWS

"This collection provokes lively debates. The chapters have a shared interest in analyzing the apparent opposites of ‘pleasure’ and ‘pain’ as mutually reinforcing elements constitutive of a conflicted contemporary reality.” —Vanessa Meikle Schulman, author of Work Sights: The Visual Culture of Industry in Nineteenth-Century America— -

TABLE OF CONTENTS

A Note from the Editors

Introduction: On the Conditions of Pleasure and Pain by Christopher J. Gilbert and John Louis Lucaites

Chapter 1. Rhetorical Ecologies of Violent Care: Thinking with Spotted Lanternflies by Joshua Trey Barnett

Chapter 2. War, Satyriasis, and the Comic Pain of Gun Violence in Chi-Raq by Christopher J. Gilbert and John Louis Lucaites

Chapter 3. Shark Party: Trauma Scripts and the Comic Personae of Anthony Jeselnik by Kristen E. Hoerl and Casey Ryan Kelly

Chapter 4. The Texture of Pain: Haptic Visuality, Public Spectatorship, and Compassion in Documentary Photography by W. Patrick Wade

Chapter 5. Negotiating the Kairotic Norms of Trauma: The Kavanaugh Hearings and #WhyIDidntReport by Valerie N. Wieskamp

Chapter 6. A Child Is Being Trafficked: The Figuration of Child Abuse and Desire in Right-Wing Extremist Discourses by Calum Lister Matheson

Chapter 7. Pain, Pleasure, and the Mirror of Enjoyment by Atilla Hallsby and Joshua Gunn

Chapter 8. Owning Up: This White Woman Critic Needs to Do Better by Claire Sisco King

Epilogue: Who Are You to Have This Affect? by Rebecca Wanzo

Bibliography

List of Contributors

Index