High Anxiety: Catastrophe, Scandal, Age, and Comedy

" . . . acute look at the state of contemporary culture . . . A humorous . . . book, it yields rewarding advice for our perception of reality and fiction." --Back Stage / Shoot

"Mellencamp's ease of movement between the conceptual and the commonplace is the great strength of this work. . . . High Anxiety is an invaluable contribution to the cultural studies debate . . . " --Art + Text

Written with wit and flair, High Anxiety is a critique of the temporality of U.S. television, a narrative journey between Freud's texts on obsession and the cult of anxiety pervading contemporary culture. Operation Desert Storm, I Love Lucy, Anita Hill, Twin Peaks, and Oprah are a few of the subjects which form this "anxious" mosaic of popular culture.