I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts: Drive-by Essays on American Dread, American Dreams
I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts: Drive-by Essays on American Dread, American Dreams
Cite
Abstract
Exploring the darkest corners of the national psyche and the nethermost regions of the self—the gothic, the grotesque, and the carnivalesque—this book aims to make sense of the cultural dynamics of the American madhouse early in the twenty-first century. The book includes chapters on the pornographic fantasies of Star Trek fans, Facebook as Limbo of the Lost, George W. Bush’s fear of his inner queer, the theme-parking of the Holocaust, the homoerotic subtext of the Super Bowl, the hidden agendas of IQ tests, Santa’s secret kinship with Satan, the sadism of dentists, Adolf Hitler’s afterlife on YouTube, the sexual identity of 2001’s HAL, the suicide note considered as a literary genre, the surrealist poetry of robot spam, the zombie apocalypse, Lady Gaga, the Church of Euthanasia, toy guns in the dream lives of American boys, and the polymorphous perversity of Madonna’s big toe. The book casts a critical eye on the accepted order of things, boldly crossing into the intellectual no-fly zones demarcated by cultural warriors on both sides of America’s ideological divide: controversy-phobic corporate media, blinkered academic elites, and middlebrow tastemakers.
-
Front Matter
- Introduction
-
American Magic, American Dread
- Dead Man Walking: What Do Zombies Mean?
-
Gun Play: An American Tragedy in Three Acts
- Mysterious Stranger: Grandpa Twain’s Dark Side
- On Lady Gaga: Aladdin Sane Called. He Wants His Lightning Bolt Back.
- Jocko Homo: How Gay Is the Super Bowl?
- Wimps, Wussies, and W. Masculinity, American Style
- Stardust Memories: How David Bowie Killed the ’60s, Ushered in the ’70s, and, for One Brief Shining Moment, Made the Mullet Hip
- When Animals Attack! An Aesop’s Fable about Anthropomorphism
- Toe Fou: Subliminally Seduced by Madonna’s Big Toe
- Shoah Business
- The Triumph of the Shill: Fascist Branding
- Endtime for Hitler: On the Downfall Parodies and the Inglorious Return of Der Führer
-
Myths of the Near Future: Making Sense of the Digital Age
-
Tripe Soup for the Soul: Religion and All Its Works and Ways
-
Anatomy Lesson: The Grotesque, the Gothic, and Other Dark Matters
- Open Wide: Dental Horror
- Gray Matter: The Obscure Pleasures of Medical Libraries
-
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Severed Head
- Been There, Pierced That: Apocalypse Culture and the Escalation of Subcultural Hostilities
- Death to All Humans! The Church of Euthanasia’s Modest Proposal
- Great Caesar’s Ghost: On the Crypt of the Capuchins
- Aphrodites of the Operating Theater: On La Specola’s Anatomical Venuses
- Goodbye, Cruel Words: On the Suicide Note as a Literary Genre
- Cortex Envy: Bringing Up Baby Einstein
-
End Matter
Sign in
Personal account
- Sign in with email/username & password
- Get email alerts
- Save searches
- Purchase content
- Activate your purchase/trial code
- Add your ORCID iD
Purchase
Our books are available by subscription or purchase to libraries and institutions.
Purchasing informationMonth: | Total Views: |
---|---|
October 2022 | 2 |
November 2022 | 1 |
December 2022 | 2 |
January 2023 | 4 |
January 2023 | 3 |
January 2023 | 2 |
January 2023 | 1 |
January 2023 | 3 |
February 2023 | 4 |
March 2023 | 4 |
April 2023 | 1 |
May 2023 | 1 |
June 2023 | 3 |
July 2023 | 3 |
August 2023 | 2 |
September 2023 | 2 |
September 2023 | 1 |
October 2023 | 1 |
October 2023 | 1 |
October 2023 | 1 |
October 2023 | 2 |
November 2023 | 2 |
November 2023 | 2 |
December 2023 | 2 |
December 2023 | 2 |
December 2023 | 12 |
January 2024 | 1 |
January 2024 | 1 |
February 2024 | 1 |
February 2024 | 2 |
March 2024 | 2 |
March 2024 | 3 |
March 2024 | 1 |
April 2024 | 1 |
April 2024 | 3 |
May 2024 | 1 |
June 2024 | 1 |
June 2024 | 2 |
June 2024 | 3 |
June 2024 | 4 |
July 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 2 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 2 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 2 |
August 2024 | 3 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 5 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 2 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 2 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 2 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 2 |
August 2024 | 2 |
August 2024 | 2 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 2 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 3 |
August 2024 | 2 |
August 2024 | 2 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 1 |
August 2024 | 2 |
October 2024 | 2 |
December 2024 | 1 |
December 2024 | 1 |
January 2025 | 1 |
February 2025 | 1 |
February 2025 | 3 |
April 2025 | 3 |
April 2025 | 1 |
Get help with access
Institutional access
Access to content on Oxford Academic is often provided through institutional subscriptions and purchases. If you are a member of an institution with an active account, you may be able to access content in one of the following ways:
IP based access
Typically, access is provided across an institutional network to a range of IP addresses. This authentication occurs automatically, and it is not possible to sign out of an IP authenticated account.
Sign in through your institution
Choose this option to get remote access when outside your institution. Shibboleth/Open Athens technology is used to provide single sign-on between your institution’s website and Oxford Academic.
If your institution is not listed or you cannot sign in to your institution’s website, please contact your librarian or administrator.
Sign in with a library card
Enter your library card number to sign in. If you cannot sign in, please contact your librarian.
Society Members
Society member access to a journal is achieved in one of the following ways:
Sign in through society site
Many societies offer single sign-on between the society website and Oxford Academic. If you see ‘Sign in through society site’ in the sign in pane within a journal:
If you do not have a society account or have forgotten your username or password, please contact your society.
Sign in using a personal account
Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members. See below.
Personal account
A personal account can be used to get email alerts, save searches, purchase content, and activate subscriptions.
Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members.
Viewing your signed in accounts
Click the account icon in the top right to:
Signed in but can't access content
Oxford Academic is home to a wide variety of products. The institutional subscription may not cover the content that you are trying to access. If you believe you should have access to that content, please contact your librarian.
Institutional account management
For librarians and administrators, your personal account also provides access to institutional account management. Here you will find options to view and activate subscriptions, manage institutional settings and access options, access usage statistics, and more.