The Fantasy of Reality

Rachel E. Silverman (PhD, University of South Florida) is Assistant Professor of Communication in the Department of Humanities and Communication at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University. She is co-editor of Communicating Pregnancy Loss: Narrative as A Method for Change (Peter Lang, 2015).

Contents: The Real Housewives: Casts and Seasons — Ragan Fox: Queering «Housewives» — Robin M. Boylorn: «Brains, Booty and All Bizness»: Identity Politics, Ratchet Respectability, and The Real Housewives of Atlanta — Nicole B. Cox: Race (Re)visited: It’s a (Mostly) White World — Erin Ashenhurst: Sunshine Blondes in a City of Glass: On Watching the Real Vancouver — Watching and Selling The Real Housewives — Jacquelyn Arcy: Affective Enterprising: Branding the Self Through Emotional Excess — Peter Bjelskou: The Real Entrepreneurs of New York City: Selling Elegance and Class in the Marketplace — Rachael Liberman: Hate-Watching the Housewives: Gender, Power, and the Pleasure of Judgment — Emily D. Ryalls: Do Mean Girls Grow Up? Watching «Queen Bee» Stassi Schroeder on Reality Television — Judy Battaglia, Ashley Cordes, Kathleen Norris, and Roxanne Bañuelos: Love the Housewives, but Where’s Our Feminism? — David Gudelunas: Every Housewife’s Best Friend: The Sidekick — Without Him, The Real Housewives Wouldn’t Exist — Keith Berry/Tony E. Adams: Notes on Andy Cohen.