John F. Kennedy through the Looking Glass. Docudramatic Representations of the JFK Image - Raluca Lucia Cimpean

John F. Kennedy through the Looking Glassis the story of an image, of its coagulation and further reflection and/or refraction. It traces John F. Kennedy’s posthumous relationship with moving pictures, with a focus on how the Kennedy image has projected in a popular film genre: feature docudrama. As it is always the case, the truth is in the eye of the beholder. In the case of this project, the beholder is a collective entity made of docudramas and the truth is partial, biased and open.

Dr. Raluca Lucia Cimpean’s book John F. Kennedy through the Looking Glass: Docudramatic Representations of the JFK Imagemakes an important contribution to the theoretical analysis of docudrama as a new and independent genre as well as to the study of John F. Kennedy’s image in American popular culture. It is a must-read for all serious Kennedy scholars and a major accomplishment of a promising academic. (Manfred Berg, Curt Engelhorn Professor of American History, Heidelberg University)