"An Evening With JonBenet Ramsey" begins with a full-length play, "Cowboy's Sweetheart," which imagines the life of a sexually abused and murdered child as it might have evolved had she lived. The play is followed by two essays which consider the JonBenet Ramsey case from a number of perspectives. The result is an incisive critique of the media and a compelling study of the psychological consequences of what is a national epidemic: the sexual abuse of children.

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"An Evening With JonBenet Ramsey" begins with a full-length play, "Cowboy's Sweetheart," which imagines the life of a sexually abused and murdered child as it might have evolved had she lived. The play is followed by two essays which consider the JonBenet Ramsey case from a number of perspectives. The result is an incisive critique of the media and a compelling study of the psychological consequences of what is a national epidemic: the sexual abuse of children.

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This book explores the complex relationship between art and politics. Walter Davis uses his extensive knowledge of psychoanalysis to develop a philosophical critique of the impact that the current political climate is having on all artistic endeavour. He uses examples from a wide variety of fields including the theatre and popular culture, to show how true artistic freedom of expression is under threat from the ideological constraints imposed by contemporary capitalism. Starting with an analysis of the censorship of the play 'My Name is Rachel Corrie', which was withdrawn from production by a major New York theatre due to political pressure, Davis shows how all art that challenges the mainstream is suppressed or distorted to suit the politics of our time - one that will not recognise the truth of human experience and the disorder at the heart of all civilization.

"Davis writes with fervor, vision, and keen moral appreciation of our condition. He encourages us to see what we fear to see, to say what we fear to say. This book is illuminating, challenging, fierce." Michael Eigen, author of The Sensitive Self, Rage, Ecstasy, Toxic Nourishment, Damaged Bonds andThe Psychoanalytic Mystic
Why is fear a dominant emotion in contemporary society? Why are politicians using words like 'terror', 'evil' and 'fundamentalism', and what effect is it having on public consciousness?
Answering these questions, Walter A. Davis taps into the cultural psyche to explore the link between ideology and emotional and psychological manipulation. Starting with the three topics that have preoccupied social discourse since 9-11 -- terror, evil and fundamentalism -- he shows that the Bush administration has been hugely successful in controlling and developing a new political climate through the creation of an almost hypnotic mass consciousness.
Davis's findings take us to the heart of the ideological paralysis of the Left, while offering an innovative approach to understanding contemporary history.
Davis fuses a psychoanalytic and philosophical framework to explain the relation between culture and political events, from the sado-masochist hysteria of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ' to the atrocities at Abu Ghraib prison; and from the genocidal use of depleted uranium in Iraq to the apocalyptic language driving the Christian Right's assault on basic human rights.
He exposes the motives and belief-systems of this new American psyche and shows how it sustains the Bush administration's agenda. Illuminating how psychological needs govern political action, Davis reveals why the relationship between politics and public consciousness has massive implications for all of us beyond America's borders.
Walter A. Davis is Professor Emeritus in the Department of English at Ohio State University. He is the author of six previous books, including Inwardness and Existence: Subjectivity in/and Hegel, Heidegger, Marx and Freud (University of Wisconsin Press, 1989) and Deracination: Historicity, Hiroshima, and the Tragic Imperative (SUNY Press, 2001).