What People are Saying About This
Duane C. S. Stoltzfus
Showcasing the author's command of documentary analysis and construction, Fooling with the Amish breaks ground with authority. Eitzen draws deeply from personal interviews, along with a wide-ranging set of academic sources on early cinema, reality TV, media theory, and the Amish.
Donald B. Kraybill
Eitzen brilliantly dissects the thicket of lies entangled in Amish Mafia. But before you cheer, beware. He also reveals why we tolerate fakery just for the sake of a good story. In a time when truth-shredding is common, the sweeping ramifications of this superb book touch politics, television, news, civil discourse, personal ethics, and of course fakery in reality TV. Clear. Creative. Compelling.
David L. Weaver-Zercher
The idea of an Amish mafia may be silly, but Dirk Eitzen takes their fabricated 'reality' seriously. In doing so he helps shed light on one of the defining issues of our time: the tenuous place of honesty in a post-truth age. If you're looking for a book about religion and popular culture that's funny and smart—and also quite disturbing—this is it.
From the Publisher
Showcasing the author's command of documentary analysis and construction, Fooling with the Amish breaks ground with authority. Eitzen draws deeply from personal interviews, along with a wide-ranging set of academic sources on early cinema, reality TV, media theory, and the Amish.
—Duane C. S. Stoltzfus, Goshen College, author of Pacifists in Chains: The Persecution of Hutterites during the Great War
The idea of an Amish mafia may be silly, but Dirk Eitzen takes their fabricated 'reality' seriously. In doing so he helps shed light on one of the defining issues of our time: the tenuous place of honesty in a post-truth age. If you're looking for a book about religion and popular culture that's funny and smart—and also quite disturbing—this is it.
—David L. Weaver-Zercher, Messiah College, author of The Amish in the American Imagination
Eitzen brilliantly dissects the thicket of lies entangled in Amish Mafia. But before you cheer, beware. He also reveals why we tolerate fakery just for the sake of a good story. In a time when truth-shredding is common, the sweeping ramifications of this superb book touch politics, television, news, civil discourse, personal ethics, and of course fakery in reality TV. Clear. Creative. Compelling.
—Donald B. Kraybill, Elizabethtown College, author of Renegade Amish: Beard Cutting, Hate Crimes, and the Trial of the Bergholz Barbers
Fooling with the Amish insightfully examines the psychological appeal of reality television and the assumptions and techniques that ground the genre. Dirk Eitzen uses the reality television show Amish Mafia as an extended example in exploring these issues. The fact that Eitzen knows the real Amish very well makes the book doubly interesting.
—Carl R. Plantinga, Calvin University, author of Rhetoric and Representation in Nonfiction Film
Carl R. Plantinga
Fooling with the Amish insightfully examines the psychological appeal of reality television and the assumptions and techniques that ground the genre. Dirk Eitzen uses the reality television show Amish Mafia as an extended example in exploring these issues. The fact that Eitzen knows the real Amish very well makes the book doubly interesting.
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