Synopses & Reviews
While international adoptions have risen in the public eye and recent scholarship has covered transnational adoption from Asia to the U.S., adoptions between North America and Latin America have been overshadowed and, in some cases, forgotten. In this nuanced study of adoption, Karen Dubinsky expands the historical record while she considers the political symbolism of children caught up in adoption and migration controversies in Canada, the United States, Cuba, and Guatemala.
Babies without Borders tells the interrelated stories of Cuban children caught in Operation Peter Pan, adopted Black and Native American children who became icons in the Sixties, and Guatemalan children whose “disappearance” today in transnational adoption networks echoes their fate during the countrys brutal civil war. Drawing from archival research as well as from her critical observations as an adoptive parent, Dubinsky moves debates around transnational adoption beyond the current dichotomy—the good of “humanitarian rescue,” against the evil of “imperialist kidnap.” Integrating the personal with the scholarly, Babies without Borders exposes what happens when children bear the weight of adult political conflicts.
Review
“Deeply researched, beautifully written, and brimming with insight, Babies without Borders illustrates how profoundly narratives about rescuing and stealing children have distorted our understanding of international adoption throughout its history. From Cuba and Canada to Guatemala, babies caught up in the wars, refugee migrations, and other global calamities of the past half-century have paid a very high price for the privilege of serving as symbols of national pride, vulnerability, and destiny. Dubinsky refreshingly shifts our attention from Asia to Latin America, insists on telling stories from both sides of the border, and offers compelling evidence for the view that international power is inextricably linked to some of the most intimate experiences of family life—including her own.”
-Ellen Herman,author of Kinship by Design: A History of Adoption in the Modern United States
Review
“By making children the subject of her research, Dubinsky has provided original insight into the moral premises by which power is exercised and experienced. To approach children as highly-prized objects within paradigms of transnational privilege-the continuation of politics by other means-is to expose in the most intimate of settings the ways that the powerful and the powerless are drawn together into an inexorable relationship with one another, with all too predictable outcomes. This is a thoughtful and thought-provoking work of exemplary scholarship.”
-Louis A. Pèrez, Jr.,,University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Review
"Dubinksy researched three ethnic and national sources of adoption in the postwar Americas that created political storms and left the field of transnational and transracial adoption polarized between those who view these adoptions as postcolonial baby snatching and those who believe these adoptions rescue poor abandoned kids . . . establishes a more nuanced way of viewing cross border adoptions."-N. Zmora,Choice Magazine
Review
"Babies Without Borders is meticulously researched. The prose is intelligent and dense."-Judith L. Gibbons,Contemporary Psychology
Review
"Intensely researched and historically relevant to current trends, Dubinsky's book provides insight into both the social workers and political realms of adoption from a multinational perspective." -Farnad J. Darnell,Project Muse
Review
Satire TV represents a valuable investigation into the somplex relationships among mediated politics, televisual comedy, media reception, and democratic participation. With academic studies of comedy still representing a somewhat small (but ever-growing) facet of the media studies canon, Gray, Jones, and Thompson's anthology represents a worthy primer on the broad functions of satirical media, a timely investigation of a contemporary televisual phenomenon, and an argument for further examination of the political dimensions of television comedy."-Evan Elkins,Scope Cinema Journal
Review
“These sharp, compelling essays respond to the current state of American politics, which is characterized by politicians abandoning shame, news media trivializing political news, and commentators screaming at one another. . . . Many young Americans consider satirical television news their primary source of news, and this volume helps one understand why. Stewart, Colbert, et al. take news seriously. They may be the only ones left on television who do. . . . Highly recommended.”
-Choice,
Review
“This smart and savvy crew has noticed something creeping up on us, something with bite. Now we have to take satire TV seriously; it turns out to be the bearer of the democratic spirit for the post-broadcast age. In this field-shaping book, some of the brightest talents in TV studies show us how the marginal has become the model for a much-needed media make-over. See what happens when entertainment bares its teeth.”
-John Hartley,author of Television Truths
Review
“It has been said that if you have to explain a joke, its not funny. This wonderful collection proves that nothing could be farther from the truth. Satire TV takes the study of comedy in new directions, expanding beyond earlier work done on classical Hollywood cinema and the sitcom. In politically trying times, the contributors to this volume reveal through analysis of programs such as South Park, The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report, laughter is not the best medicine—it is the surgeon's scalpel.”
-Heather Hendershot,editor of Nickelodeon Nation: The History, Politics and Economics of Americas Only TV Channel for Kids
Review
“The authors of Satire TV make no bones about it: Satire is a gateway drug that does more good for democracy than harm....This book offers historical depth and theoretically sophisticated approaches to satire TV's contemporary breadth.”
-Journal of Communication Inquiry,
Synopsis
Satirical TV has become mandatory viewing for citizens wishing to make sense of the bizarre contemporary state of political life. Shifts in industry economics and audience tastes have re-made television comedy, once considered a wasteland of escapist humor, into what is arguably the most popular source of political critique. From fake news and pundit shows to animated sitcoms and mash-up videos, satire has become an important avenue for processing politics in informative and entertaining ways, and satire TV is now its own thriving, viable television genre.
Satire TV examines what happens when comedy becomes political, and politics become funny. A series of original essays focus on a range of programs, from The Daily Show to South Park, Da Ali G Show to The Colbert Report, The Boondocks to Saturday Night Live, Lil' Bush to Chappelle's Show, along with Internet D.I.Y. satire and essays on British and Canadian satire. They all offer insights into what today's class of satire tells us about the current state of politics, of television, of citizenship, all the while suggesting what satire adds to the political realm that news and documentaries cannot.
About the Author
Jonathan Gray is associate professor of media and cultural studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is the author of
Television Entertainment and
Watching with The Simpsons: Television, Parody, and Intertextuality and co-editor of
Satire TV: Politics and Comedy in the Post-Network Era and
Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World (both available from NYU Press).
Jeffrey P. Jones is Associate Professor of Communication and Theatre Arts at Old Dominion University. He is the author of Entertaining Politics: New Political Television and Civic Culture and co-editor of The Essential HBO Reader.
Ethan Thompson is Assistant Professor of Communication at Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi.