Frontmatter 1
Acknowledgments 7
Mediating Mediatized Realities 11
1 Reportage and Mediation 41
1.1 The Complications of 'Literary Journalism' 43
1.2 The Human Qualities of Reportage 55
1.3 The Human Medium Inspecting Itself 71
2.1 Authenticity and Uncertainty in Touristic Experience 83
2.2 The Desperate Medium in David Foster Wallace's "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" (1997) 89
2.3 The Believing Medium in George Saunders's "The New Mecca" (2005) 115
2.4 The Incapable Medium in John Jeremiah Sullivan's "Upon This Rock" (2012) 133
2.5 Uncertainties and the Negotiation of Trust in Communing 149
3.1 Reflexive Subjectivities and Their Differences 153
3.2 The Mysterious Medium in George Saunders's "Buddha Boy" (2007) 159
3.3 Aware Media in John Jeremiah Sullivan's "Getting Down to What is Really Real" (2011) 175
3.4 Different Media in Mac McClelland's "Delusion is the Thing With Feathers" (2017) 191
3.5 The Possibilities of Reflexivity 209
4.1 Material and Symbolic Violence 213
4.2 The Fractured Medium in George Saunders's "Tent City, U.S.A." (2009) 219
4.3 The Atoning Medium in Michael Paterniti's "Should We Get Used To Mass Shootings?" (2016) 237
4.4 The Resilient Medium in Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah's "A Most American Terrorist" (2017) 253
4.5 The Reflexivity of Violence 271
The Possibilities of Human Media 275
Bibliography 287