In a humorous memoir, the actress explores the American obsession with food, fat, sex, love, beauty, and weight as she recounts her own battle with the bulge and reflects on what it means to be overweight in a skinny-obsessed world.

What do Ludwig von Baldass, Theodore Rolly Ball, John Cawte Beaglehole, Guido van Deth, Fulvia de Cunto Fadigas, Dingle Foot, Rev. Daniel Parish Kidder, Thomas Strangeways Pigg-Strangeways, Franciscus Petrus Hubertus Prick van Wely, Walter Lytle Pyle, Hendrik Peter Godfried Quack, Lazar Shitnitzky, Elephant Smith, Preserved Smith, Increase Niles Tarbox, and over 2000 others have in common? They are all real names of real people. They are all verified entries in library catalogs. They are all on The Inscribed List.

Lopsided Schools introduces readers to the case method and helps the reader to use the case method to examine the scholastic challenges that critics posed from World War I to the present. Some critics have stirred up educators with threats to reduce their budgets or fire them. Others upset them with disconcerting questions. Should parents demand that their children learn speed reading? Should teachers emphasize vocational activities? Should principals train their own successors? Should superintendents award bonuses to teachers? Should employers hire the graduates with the highest scores on standardized tests? Should politicians assume greater responsibility for schooling? Should journalists publicize information about lopsided schools? This book examines these and the numerous other questions that critics posed.

Stories of Oprah is a collection of essays that explores Oprah Winfrey's broad reach as an industry and media brand. Contributors analyze a number of topics touching on the ways in which her cultural output shapes contemporary America. The volume examines how Oprah has fashioned a persona—which emphasizes her rural, poverty-stricken roots over other factors—that helps her popularize her unique blend of New Age spirituality, neoliberal politics, and African American preaching. She packages New Age spirituality through the rhetoric of race, gender, and the black preacher tradition. Oprah's Book Club has reshaped literary publishing, bringing Toni Morrison, William Faulkner, and Cormac McCarthy to a broad number of readers. Her brand extends worldwide through the internet. In this volume writers analyze her positions on teen sexuality, gender, race, and politics, and the impact of Winfrey's confessional mode on mainstream television news. The book also addresses twenty-first-century issues, showing Winfrey's influence on how Americans and Europeans responded to 9/11, and how Harpo Productions created a deracialized film adaptation of Zora Neale Hurston's classic novel Their Eyes Were Watching God in 2005. Throughout, Stories of Oprah challenges readers to reflect on how Oprah the Industry has reshaped America's culture, history, and politics.

A fascinating exploration of how global cultures struggle to create their own "America" within a post-9/11 media culture, Fabricating the Absolute Fake reflects on what it might mean to truly take part in American pop culture.

Survivor. The Bachelor. Extreme Makeover. Big Brother. Joe Millionaire. American Idol. The Osbournes. It is virtually impossible to turn on a television without coming across some sort of reality programming. Yet, while this genre has rapidly moved from the fringes of television culture to its lucrative core, critical attention has not kept pace. Beginning by unearthing its historical roots in early reality shows like Candid Camera and wending its way through An American Family, Cops, and The Real World to the most recent crop of reality programs, Reality TV is the first book to address the economic, visual, cultural, and audience dimensions of reality television. The essays provide a complex and comprehensive picture of how and why this genre emerged, what it means, how it differs from earlier television programming, and how it engages societies, industries, and individuals. Topics range from the construction of televisual "reality" to the changing face of criminal violence on TV, to issues of surveillance, taste, and social control. By spanning reality television's origins in the late 1940s to its current overwhelming popularity, Reality TV demonstrates both the tenacity of the format and its enduring ability to speak to our changing political and social desires and anxieties. Contributors include: Nick Couldry, Mary Beth Haralovich, John Hartley, Chuck Kleinhans, Derek Kompare, Jon Kraszewski, Kathleen LeBesco, Justin Lewis, Ted Magder, Jennifer Maher, Anna McCarthy, Rick Morris, Chad Raphael, Elayne Rapping, Jeffrey Sconce, Michael W. Trosset, Pamela Wilson.

Known for her irreverent, no-holds-barred, hilarious opinions and observations, beloved actress and spokesperson Kirstie Alley now channels her media-savvy wit into a mashup of Chelsea Handler and Nora Ephron that delivers a down-and-dirty account of all the men she’s slept with, danced with, drank with, and the ones she’s loved and hated during her sixty years on the planet. From her award-winning turn as the neurotic Rebecca Howe on Cheers to her well-publicized splash on Dancing with the Stars, through all her weight losses and gains, her unabashed Oprah appearances, and whether she’s playing a fat actress or a sexy Vulcan, Kirstie Alley is a true original. And yet she claims that so much of her inspiration (and self-deprecating wit) has come from the good, the bad, and the ugly men she’s loved and lost throughout her tumultuous life. In this full-disclosure account, Kirstie frames her life story with all the men she’s been shaped, molded, and motivated by, from Woody Harrelson to L. Ron Hubbard to her partner Maks on Dancing with the Stars. In the end, readers will find a part of themselves in this hilarious excursion into love, sex, and self-discovery from one of Hollywood’s most enduring stars.