The Resistible Rise of Sarah Palin: Continuity and Paradox in the American Right Wing1

Sarah Palin clearly holds a powerful appeal for a right‐wing constituency although even her most fervent followers may doubt that she is electable. This article examines the basis of her appeal. We argue that it can be summed up as an appeal to American authenticity, which consists of several elements: the valorization of small town ordinary life takes second place to faith and religious commitment; an equal faith in American exceptionality implies that Americans should never be apologetic about their country and never waver in their belief in its special greatness; the final elements are a foundational libertarian creed and a peculiar brand of right‐wing populism. However, for all her affinities with classical right‐wing sentiment, Sarah Palin, we argue, brings something new to the mix: a genuinely maverick right‐wing feminism. That is why in the end, we call the Palin phenomenon a paradoxical one.     

Electile Dysfunction

This essay combines Burke's burlesque frame and Jamieson's double binds to create a hybrid gendered theory for rhetorically analyzing the aggressive sexualization of 2008 United States vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. The essay develops our theory titled the “burlesque binds” and explicates a specific form of a burlesque bind: the “MILF frame.” Palin's aggressively sexualized representation was united under the crass acronym MILF, which stands for “Mom I'd Like to Fuck.” The MILF frame emphasized Palin's feminine qualities, positioning her as a “trophy vice” with no political acumen, and highlighted her masculine behaviors, but deflated them through sexual objectification. The unification of the binds and burlesque theories reveals how Palin's role as a social actor was not simply circumscribed but shut down: she was deemed unfit by both masculine and feminine standards, by both public and private sphere conventions. Although Sarah Palin has arguably been the most prevalent subject of the political MILF frame, our essay catalogues other instances of female political leaders experiencing this type of symbolic degradation, suggesting the MILF frame's vast influence.     

The Pastor in the Basement: Discourses of Authenticity in the Networked Public Sphere

Applying Altheide's method of ethnographic content analysis, this article tracks competing discourses of authenticity in media coverage of Jeremiah Wright and Sarah Palin. The “pastor problems” of the last election demonstrate a bias toward issues of sincerity and authenticity in the networked public sphere. Pundits and bloggers use viral videos to construct rival representations of candidates’ backstage identities. Such debates favor “flat” notions of authenticity, however, and decontextualization tends to thwart the critical gatekeeping functions of journalism. Religion serves as a proxy for issues of race, prophetic critique is demonized, and apocalyptic thinking is normalized.     

莎拉遇到罗塞蒂后会自由吗？——析《法国中尉的女人》主人公莎拉“偶遇”后的出路

约翰·福尔斯的《法国中尉的女人》的双重结尾之一是莎拉遇到了代表自由的但丁·罗塞蒂,这似乎意味着莎拉超越了19世纪维多利亚时代社会对女性的束缚,获得了最终的自由。然而她和罗塞蒂相遇的必然性则表明,这个看似走在时代之前、具有鲜明女性独立意识、傲立于世的新女性即使在遇到罗塞蒂后,在罗塞蒂这个强大的父权主义者的身影后,仍未摆脱当时社会男女两性关系中的实质——“男性中心意识”的阴影而获得真正意义上的自由。     

争议之地：无家可归者与亚特兰大市中心公园

在此项研究中,我们调查了公园利益相关方超过20年控制无家可归者在市中心公园活动规模的举措,以及无家可归拥护者对付这些举措的一系列回应。我们发现,伍德拉夫公园的用途和价值伴随一天的不同时间、一周的不同日子和不同季节而变化。此外,公园利益相关方虽会随时间而变更,但当局使用的策略不一定必然会朝着某个始终如一的方向发展,或者按一种常规模式变化。最终,虽然无家可归的拥护者比起过去已很少看到,但他们仍然保护了公园内的无家可归者。案例研究认为,一个公园应该是一个基础空间,即作为共有地向所有人开放;也应该是一个典范空间,在这里,没有人会被看作是入侵者。     

论《十九世纪妇女》对父权性别二元对立的解构

文章集中分析萨拉·玛格丽特·福勒的代表作《十九世纪妇女》,旨在探讨福勒在该作品中对19世纪美国父权社会性别二元对立思想的批判和颠覆。福勒以美国超验主义的视角,消解了父权社会对两性社会差异的界定,颠覆了父权社会男性优越/女性低劣之思维范式,论证了女性平等权利的合理性,为女性争取权力的斗争提供了理论支撑。     

Shaping Perceptions of Sarah Palin’s Charisma: Presentations of Palin in the 2008 Presidential Election

Research has shown that male politicians are often stereotyped as stronger leaders than female politicians. This research, however, has taken a fairly narrow view of leadership. In the business organization literature, a leadership style called charismatic leadership is treated as a multidimensional concept, with feminine and masculine attributes. While scholarship has considered factors that shape perceptions of charisma, it has not looked at the effect of media presentations. This question became especially timely during the 2008 election. Using data from an experiment with voters in Los Angeles County, we show how media presentations impact the feminine and masculine components of Sarah Palin’s charisma. In our analysis, we show that media presentations that highlight stereotypically feminine traits increase perceptions of Palin’s feminine charisma, while those that highlight masculine traits have null effects on perceptions of Palin’s masculine charisma. Partisanship moderates these effects. Moreover, as one might expect, increased perceptions of Palin as a charismatic figure increase positive feelings toward her as a candidate.     

That straight talk: Sarah Palin and the sociolinguistics of demonstratives

Drawing on previous analyses of the social meaning of demonstratives and other function words, we argue that the semantics of demonstratives facilitates affective uses that can be characterized as attempts by the speaker to foster a sense of shared perspective and common ground with other discourse participants. We present large‐scale quantitative evidence that this strategy is widely used and communicatively effective. We then conduct a focused case study of the demonstrative use of U.S. politician and public figure Sarah Palin, situated in the wider context of Palin's persona, style, and place in the social landscape. An analysis of television interview data shows that Palin is a distinctive and prolific user of affective demonstratives. Palin's usage highlights the context‐dependence of demonstratives’ social meaning and leads to a deeper understanding of her rhetorical strategies and the polarized reactions they have received.     

论萨拉·沃特斯《轻舔丝绒》中的女性亚文化风格

《轻舔丝绒》是英国当代小说家萨拉·沃特斯“维多利亚三部曲”的开篇之作,维多利亚时代的女性生活方式和父权制主宰下的女性边缘化地位等都在这部小说中得以呈现。女性亚文化风格在服饰、场景、语言三个维度上表现了与当时主流文化有所背离的“抵制”与“反抗”因子。女性亚文化风格的形成得益于维多利亚时代的社会变革、女性受教育程度的提高以及外来新观念新文明的冲击,长期受制于父权社会审查和监视的维多利亚女性终于能在传统道德与现代文明的进程中彰显了自我。     

从《尖尖的枞树之乡》看萨拉·朱厄特的自然观

在美国文学史上，19世纪女作家萨拉·朱厄特被誉为出色的乡土作家。事实上，她很早就在不少作品中流露出对自然和人与自然关系的关注，而这一点在过去的研究中都未能得到足够的重视。在生态批评崛起，世人对朱厄特及其著作给予更多关注的背景下，对朱厄特《尖尖的枞树之乡》中的人与自然描写作一评析，揭示其作品所蕴涵的自然观是很有意义的。