Books by Michael Silverstein

If politics as practiced is talk, then how does a political figure--especially an American President--talk politics? If someone can be all style and no substance, is there any actual political substance to style? "Talking Politics" looks at the alpha and omega of presidential image, its highs--Lincoln at Gettysburg--and lows--"W" at any microphone--demystifying the spun mists of political "message" on which an institution like the American presidency has always depended.

This collection of ethnographies demonstrates that the divide between fleeting discursive practice and formed text is a constructed one, and that the constructional process reveals "culture". The cultural processes of "entextualization" and "contextualization" are examined.