Seinfeld, Master of Its Domain Revisiting Television's Greatest Sitcom [Paperback]

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 and Sara Lewis Dunne (Middle Tennessee State University), Preface. Part of Popular Culture : The Legacy of SeinfeldSection 1. Giddy-Up! : IntroductionsAlbert Auster (Fordham University), Much Ado About Nothing: Some Final Thoughts on Seinfeld David Marc (Syracuse University), Seinfeld: A Show (Almost) About NothingBill Wyman, SeinfeldReflections on SeinfeldSection 2. Maybe the dingoes ate your baby : Genre, Humor, IntertextualityMichael Dunne (Middle Tennessee State University), Seinfeld as Intertextual Comedy Barbara Ching (University of Memphis), They Laughed Unhappily Ever After: Seinfeld, Situation Comedy, and the Encounter with NothingnessDennis Hall (University of Louisville), Jane Austen, Meet Jerry SeinfeldAmy McWilliams (Texas A & M), Genre Expectation and Narrative Innovation in SeinfeldSection 3. If I like their race, how can that be racist? : Gender, Generations, and EthnicityJoanna L. Di Mattia (Monash University), Male Anxiety and the Buddy System in Seinfeld Matthew Bond, Are they having babies just so people will visit them? : Parents and Children on SeinfeldJon Stratton (Curtin University of Technology), Seinfeld is a Jewish Sitcom, Isn't It: Ethnicity and Assimilation on 1990s American TelevisionSection 4. It is so sad, all your knowledge of high culture comes from Bugs Bunny cartoons : Culturalls~