Table of Contents

I Stand By This Man: Colbert Speaks Truthiness to Power The Public at Risk: Dissent and Democracy after 9/11 Proud to Be an American Satirist America According to The Colbert Report: Or How a TV Show Can Change the Way a Nation Thinks Amusing Ourselves to Activism?

About the Author

Sophia A. McClennen is Professor of Comparative Literature, Spanish, and Women's Studies at the Pennsylvania State University, University Park, USA where she directs the Center for Global Studies and the graduate program in Comparative Literature.

Reviews

"America According to Colbert demonstrates that Colbert's work is also a form of public pedagogy, teaching his audiences to be distrustful of power and fools, and to view all politicians, pundits, and politics itself with mistrust. McClennen's well-written and documented study brilliantly illuminates the Colbert phenomenon and its importance for contemporary politics, journalism, and popular culture today." - Douglas Kellner, Professor, UCLA; author of Guys and Guns Amok and Media Spectacle and the Crisis of Democracy "America According to Colbert is beautifully readable and delightfully smart; rich in examples and conceptual frame. McClennen gives us a master class in the critical pedagogy of Colbert." - Geoffrey Baym, Associate Professor, Department of Media Studies, University of North Carolina Greensboro "An always insightful and often delightful reading of the most sustained and successful exercise in political satire in modern American life. Stephen Colbert would no doubt agree - well, about all but the 'satire' part. Let the eagle soar!" - Geoffrey Nunberg, Adjunct Full Professor, School of Information, University of California at Berkeley