Profanity, Obscenity and the Media (Hardcover)

IntroductionPart 1: Towards a Theory of Journalistic Malpractice1. From A. N. Whitehead to Irving Kristol Illusions and Self-Deception Hard Facts and Soft Future Adversarial Culture "Sensations": From Silent Images to Talking Pictures Art News and New Art Of Nihilism and Mendacity2. The Little Lie and the Big Story Hitler's Hoax The Counterfeiter's Fiction Mysteries of the Piltdown Forgery3. Difficulties in Grappling with Reality The Reporter Rearranges the Scene Janet Cooke and the Color of Truth The Duping of Hersh's "Camelot" Martin Walser's "Catechism of Correctness"4. The New ShamanismPart 2: Sex and Other Ongoing Titillations5. The Ennui of Obscenity Between Sexual Virility and Erotic Fatigue Low Notes in High C A-Word to S-Word, and their Synonyms Of Ideology and Scatology The Snafu Known as Swag Filling Out the Missing Details Private Parts, Public Lives Alphabet Soup Mr. Bloomberg's "$!*@&"6. "O Propheta" The Last Refuge Porno Ploys and Crackable Codes A*c*c*o*m*p*l*i*c*e*s, or: Participatory Obscenity Steiner and Burgess On "Love"7. Chaucer and a Choice of Taboo Words8. Strong Odors, Blurred Pictures9. Obsessions with the S-Word10. The Case of the Missing F**r-L****r Word11. Asterisks: From Byron to Madonna12. Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad F-Word?13. Tiger, the Times, and a Dreaded Black Asterisk14. Morphing the A-Word15. Terms of Agreement and Endearment16. The Mergenthaler Option17. A Matter of Illegitimacy18. The Guard that Failed19. The Desperate Search for "the Good Bits" Sporting Language Tom Jones and the Language Police20. Swearing is the CursePart 3: Literary Origins and Popular Consequences21. Sources of Malpractice22. From Wordsworth to Orwell and Hemingway23. The Prose We Write and Speak24. Dealing with the Grandmother Tongue The Continuing Domestication of Yiddishisms Leo Rosten's Gallimaufry25. Quotations that were Unquoted26. Dirty Realism in the White House and Beyond27. Towards a Vocabulary of Pop DiplomacyNotesIndex