Fabricating the Absolute Fake: America in Contemporary Pop Culture [signed]

From the pageantry of Oprah Winfrey s daytime talk show to the Atlanta-based Coca-Cola empire, American pop culture and the contemporary films, television programs, and cultural objects that determine it dominates the rest of the world through its hegemonic presence. Does that make everyone a hybridized American or do these elements find mediation within the other cultures that consume them? Fabricating the Absolute Fake applies elements of postmodern theory Jean Baudrillard s hyperreality and Umberto Eco s absolute fake , among others to this globally mediated American pop culture in order to examine both the phenomenon itself and its specific appropriation in the Netherlands, as evidenced by diverse cultural icons like the Elvis-inspired crooner Lee Towers, the Moroccan-Dutch white rapper Ali B, musical tributes to an assassinated politician, and the Dutch reality soap opera scene.