Introduction: Oprah Winfrey as subject and spectacle / Jennifer Harris and Elwood Watson. Pt. I. Oprah Winfrey and race. The specter of Oprah Winfrey: critical black female spectatorship / Tarshia L. Stanley -- My mom and Oprah Winfrey: her appeal to white women / Linda Kay -- The "Oprahization" of America: The man show and the redefinition of black femininity / Valerie Palmer-Mehta. Pt. II. Oprah Winfrey on the stage. Oprah Winfrey and women's autobiography: a televisual performance of the therapeutic self / Eva Illouz and Nik John -- From fasting to self-acceptance: Oprah Winfrey and weight loss in American culture / Ella Howard -- Spiritual talk: The Oprah Winfrey show and the popularization of the New Age / Maria McGrath -- Oprah Winfrey and spirituality / Denise Martin -- Phenomenon on trial: reading rhetoric at Texas Beef v. Oprah Winfrey / Jennifer Richardson. Pt. III. Oprah Winfrey on the page. Oprah's Book Club and the American dream / Malin Pereira -- Some lessons before dying: gender, morality, and the missing critical discourse in Oprah's Book Club / Roberta F. Hammett and Audrey Dentith -- Making corrections to Oprah's Book Club: reclaiming literary power for gendered literacy management / Sarah Robbins -- Knowing for sure: epistemologies of the autonomous self in O, the Oprah magazine / Marjorie Jolles -- Oprah Winfrey's branding of personal empowerment / Damiana Gibbons.