The Comedy Studies Reader

✍ Scribed by Nick Marx (editor), Matt Sienkiewicz (editor)

• Publisher: University of Texas Press
• Year: 2018
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 326
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

From classical Hollywood film comedies to sitcoms, recent political satire, and the developing world of online comedy culture, comedy has been a mainstay of the American media landscape for decades. Recognizing that scholars and students need an authoritative collection of comedy studies that gathers both foundational and cutting-edge work, Nick Marx and Matt Sienkiewicz have assembled The Comedy Studies Reader. This anthology brings together classic articles, more recent works, and original essays that consider a variety of themes and approaches for studying comedic media―the carnivalesque, comedy mechanics and absurdity, psychoanalysis, irony, genre, race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, and nation and globalization. The authors range from iconic theorists, such as Mikhail Bakhtin, Sigmund Freud, and Linda Hutcheon, to the leading senior and emerging scholars of today. As a whole, the volume traces two parallel trends in the evolution of the field―first, comedy’s development into myriad subgenres, formats, and discourses, a tendency that has led many popular commentators to characterize the present as a “comedy zeitgeist”; and second, comedy studies’ new focus on the ways in which comedy increasingly circulates in “serious” discursive realms, including politics, economics, race, gender, and cultural power.

✦ Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
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 Sienkiewiczi
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, Peter Kragh Jensen and Matt Sienkiewicz
A: A National Joke, Andy Medhurst
B: “Transnational TV Comedy Audiences,” Inger-LiseKalviknes 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
Contributors
Index