Introduction : media spectacle and the "Virginia Tech massacre"
The time of the spectacle
Guy Debord's "society of the spectacle" and its limitations
Reading the spectacle with critical social theory and cultural studies
Societal violence and guys and guns amok
The epidemic of school shootings
Media culture, militarism, and violent masculinity
1. Deconstructing the spectacle : race, guns, and the culture wars
The shootings and the politics of race
A convocation and Cho's multimedia dossier
Guns and political scapegoating
School and workplace security : the debate begins
Mourning, copycats, and ideological manipulation
2. The situation of contemporary youth
Post-boomers and contemporary youth
Youth alienation, violence, and the war against youth
The struggle against the war on youth
3. Constructing male identities and the spectacle of terror
White male identity politics
Militia, right-wing extremism, and terrorist bombings
Home-grown terrorism : Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing
The Unabomber and the politics of terror
Middle-class white male Columbine High School shootings
The Columbine media spectacle and its exploitation
Shooting at Columbine with Michael Moore : guns, U.S. history, and violence in America
Seung-Hui Cho in the borderlands between the Korean and the American
Gun laws, school and workplace safety, and mental health care : the delicate balance
Beyond the culture of male violence and rage
New literacies, democratization, and the reconstruction of education
Politics, prisons, and the abolition democracy project
Horrors of the prison-industrial-military complex