The Queen of America Goes to Washington City

This book critiques the shift from public to private life in American citizenship. The Queen of America Goes to Washington City explores the implications of this change.

In The Queen of America Goes to Washington City, Lauren Berlant emphasizes the urgent need to revitalize public life and political agency in the United States. She delivers a powerful critique of modern discourses surrounding American citizenship, highlighting the dominance of private life over public life, a shift largely influenced by the right-wing agenda stemming from the Reagan revolution. Berlant's work sheds light on the idealized narratives surrounding sex and citizenship that currently pervade the U.S. public sphere, arguing that the political landscape has morphed into an intimate public sphere.

Berlant questions why contemporary ideals of citizenship are gauged by personal and private values rather than civic engagement. She points out the paradox of the ideal citizen being one who, symbolically, cannot act as a citizen, represented by figures such as the American child and the fetus. As she navigates through the process of privatization, Berlant examines how intimacy has come to define national culture, drawing connections from the American dream to various cultural references, such as Forrest Gump and Lisa Simpson.

Through her exploration, The Queen of America Goes to Washington City reveals the repercussions of a narrowed and privatized understanding of citizenship, which fosters increasing animosity across class, racial, sexual, and gender lines. Berlant's insightful analysis of conservative politics, privacy, and the free market challenges readers to reconsider what it means to be American in an era characterized by mass mediation and to seek a deeper understanding of agency and identity.