Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction Part 2 National Television and the Democratic Ideology of America Chapter 3 "The Courage of the Fearless Crew": Gilligan's Island and the Americanization of the Globe Chapter 4 Shakespeare in the Original Klingon: Star Trek and the End of History Part 5 Global Television and the Decline of the Nation State Chapter 6 Simpson Agonistes: Atomistic Politics, the Nuclear Family, and the Globalization of Springfield Chapter 7 Mainstreaming Paranoia: The X-Files and the Delegitimation of the Nation-State Chapter 8 Conclusion: "There's No Place Like Home"

About the Author

Paul A. Cantor has taught at Harvard University and currently is professor of English at the University of Virginia. He served on the National Council on the Humanities from 1992 to 1999. He is the author of books and numerous essays on Shakespeare, Romanticism, literary theory, comparative literature, and many other subjects.

Reviews

A brilliant professor turns TV critic, and finds literature, politics, and philosophy in four favorite series from the 1960s to the 1990s. Paul Cantor makes wonderful sense in simple prose of America's slide toward globalization, as seen on TV. An innovative book bursting with wit, a treat for the mind. It may make you believe that watching TV is not a total waste of time.
*Harvey Mansfield, Professor of Government, Harvard University; Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution*

Cantor provides a fascinating frame for discussions of popular culture.
*Publishers Weekly*

Gilligan Unbound is a fun read and a deep analysis—altogether an amazing achievement. As a lively and perceptive student of our culture, Cantor can't be beat.
*William Kristol, editor, The Weekly Standard*

Paul Cantor is a serious theorist who takes popular culture seriously—but with a light touch. What he gives us is a book with genuine insight into the nature of our times, one that shows how examination of the everyday can lead us directly to the deepest questions of human life and philosophy.
*Francis Fukuyama, author of The End of History and the Last Man*

As a student of American popular culture, Paul Cantor is the best. His scholarship is wonderful, learned, generous, and luminous. Cantor sees the serious dimension of ostensibly trivial things—and the trivial in the ostensibly serious—and he gives his readers remarkable access to the American soul. Gilligan Unbound is a grand book, indispensable for anyone who wants to understand contemporary American life and thought.
*Wilson Carey McWilliams, Rutgers University*

A provocative book about the changes in pop culture during the last four decades.
*The Washington Times*

What the hell is he talking about?
*E. D. Hirsch Jr., author of Cultural Literacy*

Brilliant book. Books on television written by academics are always terrible. Gilligan Unbound is the exception that proves the rule. Cantor's book succeeds despite the fact that it is about television. His insights about life today are so intelligent that they sparkle despite being expressed in the context of pop-culture criticism.
*The Weekly Standard*

Paul A. Cantor is a strange creature: a conservative professor of English at the University of Virginia who specializes in Shakespeare, loves pop culture, and is flat-out funny. . . . What makes Cantor's reflections impressive and credible is that, like a thimbleful of other conservatives such as Thomas Hibbs and John Podhoretz, Cantor absorbs the culture. He understands that it houses the bad and the good.
*Los Angeles Times*

In this interesting book, Paul Cantor wants to see how globalization has itself become a theme in specific TV programs, and how they express changing attitudes toward the process. Cantor does not hide behind the scholarly jargon and methodoly so many popular culture scholars employ—scholars writing about the interests of the common man in terms the common man can never understand. In short, he takes popular culture seriously, but not too seriously. This book asks for a new respect for our popular culture and its role in our society.
*The Roanoke Times*

One of the Best Books of 2001—Nonfiction
Cantor has accomplished something so rare that it seems phenomenal: he has written a conservative book on pop culture that is smart and felicitous. Cantor has laid out a blueprint for how conservatives should engage the culture in the future.
*Los Angeles Times*

A refreshing exception to the rule of academicians writing about popular culture.
*Claremont Review of Books*

With the publication of Gilligan Unbound, Mr.Cantor has presented a complex and involved thesis lucidly and entertainingly.
*The Virginia Advocate*

Providing an in-depth analysis of Gilligan's Island, Star Trek,The Simpsons, and The X-Files, the author examines what each series reflected about America in its era. Gilligan Unbound is well-argued.
*Foreword Reviews*

An amazing work of scholarship that details how these four shows reveal a change in Americans' sense of their place in the world.
*Magill's Literary Annual*

Far from being another exercise in exotic pedantry, Paul Cantor's new book is timely, readable, and provocative.
*Commonweal Magazine*

An absolutely fine book, well-researched and well-written, convincing, and entertaining. Readers can take pleasure in the essays and be edified even if they have never watched Gilligan's Island, Star Trek, The Simpsons, and The X-Files. Of course, they will enjoy them even more if they are regular viewers of such shows, and be positively elated if they are 'fans.' I unhesitatingly recommend it.
*Cercles*

My introduction to Mass Communication course seeks to cause 400 Freshmen and Sophomores to see with different eyes media with which they think they are very familiar. Paul Cantor's Gilligan Unbound has performed that function spendidly. One need not think Cantor identifies the most important messages in these programs to be persuaded that even the most mindless television contains messages students have never noticed before.
*Jack Mitchell, University of Wisconsin*

Gilligan Unbound was an ideal vehicle for eliciting class discussion on issues of globalization. It also got my class involved in discussions about television as a major part of our common culture. Cantor's book is an intelligent, well researched, and incredibly engaging look at changes in American attitudes towards the world.
*Laurie Johnson Bagby, Kansas State University*

Professor Cantor has taken the Castaways from Gilligan's Island, and he has used them to show how my characters and their way of life would impact the real world. And he has accomplished this in a very fascinating fashion.
*Sherwood Schwartz, Producer of Gilligan's Island*

Cantor's discourse has an elegant seriousness that is at the same time inherently laid-back and passionately vivacious.
*Discourse & Society*

A smart, light-hearted analysis of American TV's attitudes toward globalization. Cantor writes with humor and wit whether discussing Shakespeare references in Star Trek or analyzing the cultural significance of Simpons Kwik-E-Mart owner Apu Nahasapeemapetilon and shows that TV's treasures and trash alike can offer serious commentary on the state of the world.
*The American Enterprise*

Thanks to cultural studies, television was never more interesting. Here Gilligan's Island that most insipid of 1960s sitcoms is "a patriotic show, celebrating America and its democratic way of life," and The X-Files "reflects a growing cynicism in the American people about their government." Cantor, a contributor to the Weekly Standard, looks at how The Simpsons, Star Trek, Gilligan's Island and The X-Files reflect the impact of increasing globalization on U.S. culture. At his best (as when Cantor discusses the meaning of Shakespearean quotes in Star Trek), he resembles cultural studies guru Margery Garber (Academic Instincts), but too often Cantor's conservative political bent prevents him from accurately interpreting his material. After attacking what he sees as television's neglecting "the importance of the nuclear family," he praises The Simpsons as "the return of the nuclear family" that "celebrates the spirit of small time America" a curious assertion given that most of the show can, and usually is, read as the opposite. He is better with The X-Files, when he delineates how the show reflects the position of the nation-state at this historical moment. Cantor's traditionalist interpretation of U.S. history forces readers to question his judgments, as when he asserts (in a discussion of Gilligan's Island) that "issues such as civil rights and the counterculture created bitter divisions in American society" rather then the other way around. While Cantor's overriding theme provides a fascinating frame for discussions of popular culture, his examples fall short of his grand thesis. (Nov.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

A brilliant professor turns TV critic, and finds literature, politics, and philosophy in four favorite series from the 1960s to the 1990s. Paul Cantor makes wonderful sense in simple prose of America's slide toward globalization, as seen on TV. An innovative book bursting with wit, a treat for the mind. It may make you believe that watching TV is not a total waste of time. -- Harvey Mansfield, Professor of Government, Harvard University; Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
Cantor provides a fascinating frame for discussions of popular culture. * Publishers Weekly *
Gilligan Unbound is a fun read and a deep analysis-altogether an amazing achievement. As a lively and perceptive student of our culture, Cantor can't be beat. -- William Kristol, editor, The Weekly Standard
Paul Cantor is a serious theorist who takes popular culture seriously-but with a light touch. What he gives us is a book with genuine insight into the nature of our times, one that shows how examination of the everyday can lead us directly to the deepest questions of human life and philosophy. -- Francis Fukuyama, author of The End of History and the Last Man
As a student of American popular culture, Paul Cantor is the best. His scholarship is wonderful, learned, generous, and luminous. Cantor sees the serious dimension of ostensibly trivial things-and the trivial in the ostensibly serious-and he gives his readers remarkable access to the American soul. Gilligan Unbound is a grand book, indispensable for anyone who wants to understand contemporary American life and thought. -- Wilson Carey McWilliams, Rutgers University
A provocative book about the changes in pop culture during the last four decades. * The Washington Times *
What the hell is he talking about? -- E. D. Hirsch Jr., author of Cultural Literacy
Brilliant book. Books on television written by academics are always terrible. Gilligan Unbound is the exception that proves the rule. Cantor's book succeeds despite the fact that it is about television. His insights about life today are so intelligent that they sparkle despite being expressed in the context of pop-culture criticism. * The Weekly Standard *
Paul A. Cantor is a strange creature: a conservative professor of English at the University of Virginia who specializes in Shakespeare, loves pop culture, and is flat-out funny. . . . What makes Cantor's reflections impressive and credible is that, like a thimbleful of other conservatives such as Thomas Hibbs and John Podhoretz, Cantor absorbs the culture. He understands that it houses the bad and the good. -- Jonathan V. Last * Los Angeles Times *
In this interesting book, Paul Cantor wants to see how globalization has itself become a theme in specific TV programs, and how they express changing attitudes toward the process. Cantor does not hide behind the scholarly jargon and methodoly so many popular culture scholars employ-scholars writing about the interests of the common man in terms the common man can never understand. In short, he takes popular culture seriously, but not too seriously. This book asks for a new respect for our popular culture and its role in our society. * The Roanoke Times *
One of the Best Books of 2001-Nonfiction Cantor has accomplished something so rare that it seems phenomenal: he has written a conservative book on pop culture that is smart and felicitous. Cantor has laid out a blueprint for how conservatives should engage the culture in the future. * Los Angeles Times *
A refreshing exception to the rule of academicians writing about popular culture. * Claremont Review of Books *
With the publication of Gilligan Unbound, Mr.Cantor has presented a complex and involved thesis lucidly and entertainingly. * The Virginia Advocate *
Providing an in-depth analysis of Gilligan's Island, Star Trek,The Simpsons, and The X-Files, the author examines what each series reflected about America in its era. Gilligan Unbound is well-argued. * Foreword Reviews *
An amazing work of scholarship that details how these four shows reveal a change in Americans' sense of their place in the world. * Magill's Literary Annual *
Far from being another exercise in exotic pedantry, Paul Cantor's new book is timely, readable, and provocative. * Commonweal Magazine *
An absolutely fine book, well-researched and well-written, convincing, and entertaining. Readers can take pleasure in the essays and be edified even if they have never watched Gilligan's Island, Star Trek, The Simpsons, and The X-Files. Of course, they will enjoy them even more if they are regular viewers of such shows, and be positively elated if they are 'fans.' I unhesitatingly recommend it. -- Georges-Claude Guilbert * Cercles *
My introduction to Mass Communication course seeks to cause 400 Freshmen and Sophomores to see with different eyes media with which they think they are very familiar. Paul Cantor's Gilligan Unbound has performed that function spendidly. One need not think Cantor identifies the most important messages in these programs to be persuaded that even the most mindless television contains messages students have never noticed before. -- Jack Mitchell, University of Wisconsin
Gilligan Unbound was an ideal vehicle for eliciting class discussion on issues of globalization. It also got my class involved in discussions about television as a major part of our common culture. Cantor's book is an intelligent, well researched, and incredibly engaging look at changes in American attitudes towards the world. -- Laurie Johnson Bagby, Kansas State University
Professor Cantor has taken the Castaways from Gilligan's Island, and he has used them to show how my characters and their way of life would impact the real world. And he has accomplished this in a very fascinating fashion. -- Sherwood Schwartz, Producer of Gilligan's Island
Cantor's discourse has an elegant seriousness that is at the same time inherently laid-back and passionately vivacious. * Discourse & Society *
A smart, light-hearted analysis of American TV's attitudes toward globalization. Cantor writes with humor and wit whether discussing Shakespeare references in Star Trek or analyzing the cultural significance of Simpons Kwik-E-Mart owner Apu Nahasapeemapetilon and shows that TV's treasures and trash alike can offer serious commentary on the state of the world. -- Eli Lehrer * The American Enterprise *