"A massive underground sensation, The Big Lebowski has been hailed as the first cult film of the internet age. In this book, 21 fans and scholars address the film's influences - westerns, noir, grail legends, the 1960s, and Fluxus - and its historical connections to the first Iraq war, boomers, slackerdom, surrealism, college culture, and of course bowling. The Year's Work in Lebowski Studies contains neither arid analyses nor lectures for the late-night crowd, but new ways of thinking and writing about film culture."--Jacket.
Introduction / Edward P. Comentale & Aaron Jaffe -- Ins (Intrinsic Models and Influences). The really big sleep : Jeffrey Lebowski as the second coming of Rip Van Winkle / Fred Ashe -- A once and future dude : The big Lebowski as medieval grail-quest / Andrew Rabin -- Dudespeak : or, how to bowl like a pornstar / Justus Nieland -- Metonymic hats and metaphoric tumbleweeds : noir literary aesthetics in Miller's Crossing and The big Lebowski / Christopher Raczkowski -- The dude and the new left / Stacy Thompson -- The big Lebowski and Paul de Man : historicizing irony and ironizing historicism / Joshua Kates -- Lebowski and the ends of postmodern American comedy / Matthew Biberman -- Found document : the stranger's commentary and a note on his method / Thomas B. Byers -- No literal connection : mass commodification, U.S. militarism, and the oil industry in The big Lebowski / David Martin-Jones --^ "I'll keep rolling along" : some notes on singing cowboys and bowling alleys in The big Lebowski / Edward P. Comentale -- Outs (eccentric activities and behaviors). What condition the postmodern condition is in : collecting culture in The big Lebowski / Allan Smithee -- Holding out hope for the creedence : music and the search for the real thing in The big Lebowski / Diane Pecknold -- "Fuck it, let's go bowling" : the cultural connotations of bowling in The big Lebowski / Bradley D. Clissold -- LebowskIcons : the rug, the iron lung, the tiki bar, and Busby Berkeley / Dennis Hall & Susan Grove Hall -- On the White Russian / Craig N. Owens -- Professor Dude : an inquiry into the appeal of his dudeness for contemporary college students / Richard Gaughran -- Abiding (as) animal : marmot, Pomeranian, whale, dude / David Pagano -- Logjammin' and gutterballs : masculinities in The big Lebowski / Dennis Allen -- Size matters / Judith Roof -- Brunswick = Fluxus / Aaron Jaffe --^ Enduring and abiding / Jonathan Elmer -- Endnote : the goofy and the profound : a non-academic's perspective on the Lebowski achievement / William Preston Robertson.