The 2008 Gendered Campaign and the Problem with "Hillary Studies"

The critical question of when and how we will gain an American president who is also a woman has entered the public imagination via popular culture, and has driven more than one academic investigation, so we might be well served to pay particular attention to post-2008 analyses that describe, interpret, and evaluate Hillary Clinton's closely fought campaign for the office of president, as do the four books I examine here. [...] these books are instructive about the condition and future directions of gender studies in the context of political communication research, even though that is not necessarily their intent.