High Anxiety: Catastrophe, Scandal, Age, and Comedy (Arts and Politics of the Everyday)

..". acute look at the state of contemporary culture... Ahumorous... book, it yields rewarding advice for our perception of reality andfiction." -- Back Stage / Shoot
"Mellencamp's ease ofmovement between the conceptual and the commonplace is the great strength of thiswork.... High Anxiety is an invaluable contribution to the cultural studiesdebate... " -- Art + Text
Written with wit and flair, HighAnxiety is a critique of the temporality of U.S. television, a narrative journeybetween Freud's texts on obsession and the cult of anxiety pervading contemporaryculture. Operation Desert Storm, I Love Lucy, Anita Hill, Twin Peaks, and Oprah area few of the subjects which form this "anxious" mosaic of popularculture.