Seinfeld, Master of Its Domain: Revisiting Television's Greatest Sitcom

Description

After a slow and inauspicious beginning, Seinfeld broke through to become one of the most commercially successful sitcoms in the history of television. This fascinating book includes classic articles on the show by Geoffrey O'Brien and Bill Wyman (first published in the New York Review of Books and Salon.com respectively), and a selection of new and revised essays by some of the top television scholars in the US - looking at issues as wide-ranging as Seinfeld's Jewishness, alleged nihilism, food obsession, and long-running syndication. The book also includes a comprehensive episode guide, and Betty Lee's lexicon of Seinfeld language.

David Lavery is one of the leading figures of Television Studies in the United States. He teaches in the Department of English at Middle Tennessee State University, and is the author/editor/co-editor of nine books including Full of Secrets: Critical Approaches to Twin Peaks, 'Deny All Knowledge': Reading The X-Files, Fighting the Forces: What's at Stake in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and This Thing of Ours: Investigating The Sopranos. Sara Lewis Dunne also teaches at Middle Tennessee State University, and is the co-editor of Studies in Popular Culture.

"Seinfeld, Master of Its Domain is all about interpretation. In this high-powered volume, academics consider the beloved sitcom in various disciplinary contexts. Even more vital is the collection's one attempt to stop outside the comedic universe of 'Seinfeld' and consider it as a television production, "From Must-See-TV to Branded Counterprogramming: 'Seinfeld' and Syndication," by Michael M. Epistein, Mark C. Rogers and Jimmie L. Reeves. This essay, richly researched and packed with broadcast history, details how the show's syndication deal works, and hot it functions in the world of corporate media."- Newsday.com, February 19, 2006 -- Newsday.com Readers familiar with academic "cultural studies" aren't likely to tingle with anticipation when our eyes fall on a scholarly article from the Centre for Women's Studies and Gender Research at Monash University in Melbourne. And the title of Joanna L. Di Mattia's essay, "Male Anxiety and the Buddy System in Seinfeld," does nothing to lighten our mood. We expect to be rewarded, at best, with the warm feeling of virtue that follows the performance of a duty requiring heavy lifting.But it turns out that Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer, whose program ceased production in 1998 but still circles the planet in endless reruns, provide as much fun for academics as for the rest of us. With their lives and their world now sealed off in a 20th-century time capsule, they have become appropriate subjects for cheeky theorizing in the universities.Di Mattia's essay, for instance, explores a fascinating question with persuasive force. While not for a moment suggesting that Jerry and George be compared to cowboys on Brokeback Mountain, she nevertheless deftly makes the point that as TV characters they are the perfect married couple.Her essay appears in Seinfeld, Master of Its Domain: Revisiting Television's Greatest Sitcom (Continuum), edited by David Lavery and Sara Lewis Dunne of Middle Tennessee State University. This isn't the first attempt to provide fodder for Seinfeld studies -- earlier works include William Irwin's 1999 collection, Seinfeld and Philosophy: A Book about Everything and Nothing, and Shows About Nothing: Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist to Seinfeld, written by Thomas S. Hibbs in 2000.But this latest book notably differs in tone from standard university products. Appreciation and enjoyment, combined with wonder at the cleverness of the program's writers, set the tone. The platoon of scholars writing the essays understand Seinfeld as brilliant popular art, not merely a specimen demanding intellectual dissection. This means we can admire their insights without giving up our love for the best television farce we'll ever see. -The National Post, Toronto -- Robert Fulford "Noted television and pop culture academic and critic Lavery-who haspreviously written and edited scholarly texts on such television supernovasas Twin Peaks, The X-Files, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer-has whipped up afrothy egg cream of an essay collection on Seinfeld for eggheads. Sixteenessays (some new, some previously published and revised) are divided amongfour topical sections with an afterword and supplementary material featuringa glossary of Seinfeld terms and expressions and an episode guide. Theessays in Part 1 generally give an overview of the show before segueing intoPart 2's exploration of "genre, humor, and intertexuality." Part 3 treatsissues of "gender, generations, and ethnicity," while Part 4 concludes withessays on "cultural, pop cultural, and media matters." As Lavery notes inhis preface, despite Seinfeld's iconic stature-half of us loved it, and theother half loved to hate it-only one serious monograph has been published.This anthology featuring the likes of Geoffrey O'Brien and Eleanor Herseywill best serve academic media and pop culture collections and seriousreaders who like their TV eggs hard-boiled. The recent release of the showon DVD should increase interest".- Library Journal, February 2006 -- -Barry X. Miller, Austin P.L., T * Library Journal *