Bücher der Reihe American Studies Now: Critical Histories of the Present

In the last decade, public discussions of transgender issues have increased exponentially. This book explores the recent shifts in the meaning of the gendered body and representation, and explores the possibilities of a non-gendered, gender optional, or gender-hacked future.

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.