Description
Book SynopsisSurveying comedic texts and performers from The Jack Benny Program to Key and Peele, Saturday Night Live, and Stephen Colbert, this classroom-ready anthology offers a first-ever overview of the field of comedy studies.
Trade Review"An expertly conceived collection that proves both familiar and new...
The Comedy Studies Reader expertly follows through on its promise for scholars—providing a clear invitation to play, to revisit old streets and explore new territories under the sheltering sky of comedy studies." * Studies in American Humor *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Volume Introduction: Comedy as Theory, Industry, and Academic Discipline, Nick Marx and Matt Sienkiewicz
1. The Carnivalesque
Introduction: The Naked Gun
A: Rabelais and His World, Mikhail Bakhtin
B: “The Frames of Comic ‘Freedom,’” Umberto Eco
C: “Sacred Catastrophe, Profane Laughter: Family Guy's Comedy in the Ritual of National Trauma,” Philip Scepanski
2. Comedy Mechanics & Absurdity
Introduction: Man Seeking Woman
A: Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, Henri Bergson
B: The Logic of the Absurd, Jerry Palmer
C: “Pie and Chase: Gag, Spectacle and Narrative in Slapstick Comedy,” Donald Crafton
D: “The New Logic of the Absurd: The Eric André Show,” Evan Elkins
3. Psychoanalyzing Comedy
Introduction: Archer
A: Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, Sigmund Freud
B: “Humor,” Sigmund Freud
C: “Lacan’s Harpo,” Paul Flaig
D: “Revenge of the Nerds: Failure, Laughter, and Liberation on The Big Bang Theory,” Andrew J. Owens
4. Irony
Introduction: Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner 2006
A: Irony’s Edge, Linda Hutcheon
B: “Speaking Too Soon: SNL, 9/11, and the Remaking of American Irony,” Matt Sienkiewicz
C: “Welcome to the Clickhole: The Economics of Internet Parody and Critique,” Amber Day
5. Genre
Introduction: 22 Jump Street
A: Popular Film and Television Comedy, Steve Neale and Frank Krutnik
B: “Comedy Verité? The Observational Documentary Meets the Televisual Sitcom,” Ethan Thompson
C: “Inventing the Situation Comedy: Jack Benny, the ‘Fall Guy,’ and the Making of a Genre,” Kathryn Fuller-Seeley
6. Race & Ethnicity
Introduction: Key and Peele
A: Watching Race, Herman Gray
B: “The Culture Behind Closed Doors: Issues of Gender and Race in the Writers' Room,” Felicia D. Henderson
C: "Naturalizing Racial Differences Through Comedy: Asian, Black, and White Views on Racial Stereotypes in Rush Hour 2," Ji Hoon Park, Nadine G. Gabbadon, and Ariel R. Chernin
D: “‘Indians on TV (and Netflix)’: The Comedic Trajectory of Aziz Ansari,” Bhoomi K. Thakore and Bilal Hussain
7. Gender & Sexuality
Introduction: Inside Amy Schumer
A: The Unruly Woman, Kathleen Rowe Karlyn
B: Pretty/Funny, Linda Mizejewski
C: “Generic Closets: Sitcoms, Audiences and Black Male Gayness,” Alfred L. Martin Jr.
8. Nation & Globalization
Introduction: Klovn and Curb Your Enthusiasm, Peter Kragh Jensen and Matt Sienkiewicz
A: A National Joke, Andy Medhurst
B: “Transnational TV Comedy Audiences,” Inger-Lise Kalviknes Bore
C: “Transgressing Boundaries as the Hybrid Global: Parody and Postcoloniality on Indian Television,” Sangeet Kumar
D: “Comedy and the Nation in The Trip,” Brett Mills
Index
