Ayn Rand's complicated notoriety as popular writer, leader of a political and philosophical cult, reviled intellectual, and ostentatious public figure endured beyond her death in 1982. In the twenty-first century, she has been resurrected as a serious reference point for mainstream figures, especially those on the political right from Paul Ryan to Donald Trump. Mean Girlfollows Rand's trail through the twentieth century from the Russian Revolution to the Cold War and traces her posthumous appeal and the influence of her novels via her cruel, surly, sexy heroes. Outlining the impact of Rand's philosophy of selfishness, Mean Girlilluminates the Randian shape of our neoliberal, contemporary culture of greed and the dilemmas we face in our political present.
Lisa Duggan is a historian, journalist, activist, and Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University. She is the author of The Twilight of Equality? Neoliberalism, Cultural Politics, and the Attack on Democracy.
Ayn Rand's complicated notoriety as popular writer, leader of a political and philosophical cult, reviled intellectual, and ostentatious public figure endured beyond her death in 1982. In the twenty-first century, she has been resurrected as a serious reference point for mainstream figures, especially those on the political right from Paul Ryan to Donald Trump. Mean Girlfollows Rand's trail through the twentieth century from the Russian Revolution to the Cold War and traces her posthumous appeal and the influence of her novels via her cruel, surly, sexy heroes. Outlining the impact of Rand's philosophy of selfishness, Mean Girlilluminates the Randian shape of our neoliberal, contemporary culture of greed and the dilemmas we face in our political present.
Lisa Duggan is a historian, journalist, activist, and Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University. She is the author of The Twilight of Equality? Neoliberalism, Cultural Politics, and the Attack on Democracy.
Overview
Preface
Introduction. “What Is Good for Me Is Right”
1. “Proud Woman Conqueror”
2. “Individualists of the World Unite!”
3. “Would You Cut the Bible?”
4. “I Found a Flaw”
Acknowledgments
Notes
Glossary
Key Figures
Selected Bibliography
Lisa Duggan is a historian, journalist, activist, and Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University. She is the author of The Twilight of Equality? Neoliberalism, Cultural Politics, and the Attack on Democracy.
“Lisa Duggan gets it exactly right . . . when she writes that
Rand's ‘particular gift was not for philosophical elaboration, but
for stark condensation and aphorism. She deployed this gift to
create a moral economy of inequality to infuse her softly
pornographic romance fiction with the political eros that would
captivate a mass readership.’"
*Times Higher Education*
"[Duggan] is sharp, engaging, and funny when writing about Rand,
whose magnetism, determination, grandiosity, desperation, and
galloping narcissism Duggan captures beautifully."
*New York Review of Books*
"The therapeutic value of Duggan’s book goes well beyond freeing
me from shame for my teen-age lack of literary taste and political
discernment; it also provides an explanation for our current
cultural and political moment. . . . Duggan’s book sums up Rand’s
life and philosophy in under ninety pages."
*The New Yorker*
“‘A history of the influence of Ayn Rand and her particular brand
of narcissistic amorality, and an argument that her novels function
now as ‘conversion machines for our contemporary culture of greed.’
Exhibit A: Paul Ryan.”
*LitHub*
"Duggan’s skills as a cultural historian and her sharp-witted
socio-political commentary fuse seamlessly together in this short
yet fascinating book that is a necessary read for students of
culture and politics, but also activists and organisers who feel
the deep disillusionment of what seems like a never-ending
neoliberal era."
*LSE Review of Books*
“Lisa Duggan gets it exactly right in Mean Girl: Ayn Rand and the
Culture of Greed when she writes that Rand's ‘particular gift
was not for philosophical elaboration, but for stark condensation
and aphorism. She deployed this gift to create a moral economy of
inequality to infuse her softly pornographic romance fiction with
the political eros that would captivate a mass
readership.’"
*Inside Higher Education*
“Duggan goes beyond the more standard biographical accounts of Rand
and gets to the bottom of her novels and how they set a disturbing
tone for global capitalism. Further, Duggan explains the
mischaracterizations of Rand in modern memory, and provides expert
analysis of current affairs in helping readers to contextualize the
actual historical Rand and her likely political endorsements as
well as her most reactionary views.”
*Truthout*
“Cultural historian Lisa Duggan has written a small, perfect book
which accomplishes so much in only a few pages, with irony and wit,
humor and insight. . . . The book is fun, funny and in only 116
pages explains so much about not only its subject but of our
neoliberal or reactionary culture of greed and its obstinate
commitment to economic fantasy.”
*KPFK/Bibliocracy*
“Lisa Duggan wrote a book that explains everything you need to know
about Ayn Rand and why she became so enormously consequential so
that you don’t have to read Rand’s work yourself.”
*The Dig*
"The power of Duggan’s book seems that maybe in unmasking Rand’s
philosophical legitimacy and hold on the right removes a central
prop and leaves the right ever more naked.”
*The Baffler*
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