Eighties People: New Lives in the American Imagination

Ferguson, Kevin L.

Through an examination of 1980s America cultural texts and media, Kevin L. Ferguson examines how new types of individuals were created in order to manage otherwise hidden cultural anxieties during the American 1980s. Exploring a variety of strategies for fashioning self-knowledge in the decade, this book illuminates the hidden lives of surrogate mothers, crack babies, persons with AIDS, yuppies, and brat packers. These seemingly simple stereotypes in fact concealed deeper cultural changes in issues relating to race, class, and gender. Through a range of texts, Eighties People shows how the commonplace reading of the 1980s as a superficial period of little importance disguises the decade's real imperative: a struggle for self-definition outside of the limited set of options given by postmodern theorizing.

Details

Published by: Palgrave Macmillan

Publication Date: 2016-01-30

Format: Hardcover

ISBN-13: 9781137586384

DOI: 10.1057/9781137584342

Dimensions: 216cm x140cm

Pages: 193