Thesis (M.A.)--Georgia State University, 2007. / Title from file title page. Michelle Brattain, committee chair; Larry Youngs, committee member. Electronic text (111 p.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed Nov. 7, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 109-111).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Iowa, 2008. / Thesis supervisor: Bruce Gronbeck. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 158-170).

Thesis (M.A.)--Georgia State University, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 102-104).

Zugl.: Saarbrücken, Univ., Diss., 2010

No description available.

Female stand-up comics occupy a permanently liminal space which can be broken down into three small areas, characterized thusly: the interpersonal, the sexual and the professional spheres. Issues of power, footing and the carnivalesque are threaded throughout these three spaces, and I use the work of Michel Foucault, Mikhail Bakhtin and Erving Goffman to examine the ways in which the female comics I talked, lived and performed with over a two-year period negotiate this permanent liminality to both their advantage and their detriment. The three liminal spaces overlap and intersect, with female comics occupying at times two, and sometimes all three, at any given moment, in a constantly forming and re-forming state of “otherness” that separates them from the default male comic body. In locating female comedians in a permanent liminality, I illustrate the structures at play that are demonstrative not only of the comic experience, but of larger issues surrounding gender in contemporary society. / text

After 9/11, American stand-up comedy includes an increasing presence of Arab and Muslim comedians whose humor engages some of the recurring Islamophobic stereotypes circulating in the United States. These comedians combine self-deprecating humor and critique of American society. In doing so, they continue a rich tradition of American ethnic comedy, first used by other minorities to negotiate positive recognition of their ethnicities in American society. Although Arab and Muslim American stand-up comedy continues to grow, there is little academic analysis of it. My research attempts to fill this gap. I examine two video-recorded comedy tours, Allah Made Me Funny and The Axis of Evil, and draw on my experiences as participant observer at the 8th annual edition of the New York Arab American Comedy Festival. In my examination, I explore Arab and Muslim American stand-up comedy after 9/11 as a set of performances that challenge Islamophobic political discourses and contest stereotypical representations of Arabs and Muslims circulating in the media and popular culture. I begin this thesis with a discussion that defines Islamophobia after 9/11 as a pervasive ideological formation and explores the relationship between Islamophobia and stereotypical representations of Arabs and Muslims in the media and popular culture. Second, I identify political activism, personal narrative, as well as both artistic and historical opportunism as complex and interrelated dimensions of this stand-up comedy. Third, I examine how Arab and Muslim American comedians use humor to navigate the poles of their hyphenated identities and negotiate their belonging in American society. Finally, I examine the ways in which stand-up comedy reverses the discourses and representations of Islamophobia by drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of the carnivalesque.

This dissertation addresses the possibilities for humor to serve as political action. While humor has been studied since Aristotle, and many theories about its efficacy as a rhetorical form abound, most claim at best that humor produces a lesser effect than other, more serious forms of discourse. When audiences, institutions, contemporary scholars and even the comics themselves address humor, they tend to reify the theories of foundational scholars - theories that serve to circumscribe the place of humor as necessarily non-political and non-efficacious. Such modalities of humor span many theories, including intentional forms such as irony, parody and satire, spatializations such as the carnivalesque, effects based criteria such as pleasure and/or laughter (as opposed to pain and/or outrage). When taken up at an institutional level (whether by legal or economic institutions, or even by scholarly institutions), these pre-set modalities comprise sets of rules, or litige, that preempt the possibility for some of humor's most progressive functions. To reexamine humor, this project begins with the most marginalized of humorous forms, stand-up comedy. Beginning from a standpoint of critical rhetoric, routines by comics such as Lewis Black, Lenny Bruce, Dave Chappelle, Margaret Cho, Stephen Colbert, Bill Maher, Michael Richards and Sarah Silverman are used to display the limitations of contemporary theories, as well as to point out the possibility for stand-up comedy to enact critique. The primary finding is that humorous techniques create a separation between the stated and the inferred, which provides possibilities for audience judgment that is prudential in the sense of operating without pre-set models. The possibility of prudential judgment enables humor to enact détournement, the detour, diversion, hijacking, corruption or misappropriation of the spectacle.

Stand-up comedy represents a particularly potent form of rhetorical and performative criticism because of its potential duality. On the surface, a comedy set can look breezy and entertaining while containing a sharper, more critical message underneath. Like a fluffy, besprinkled cupcake hiding a potent antibiotic, stand-up comedy offers potentially healing insight under the cover of whimsy. Comedians have always utilized their performances to skewer those in power, but an increasing number have taken to the stage recently to address a particularly insidious social and cultural malady. The stigma associated with mental illness continues to limit the opportunities of those living with mental disorders, meaning comedians utilizing their performances to push back against this stigma represent a significant form of anti-mental-illness-stigma advocacy. In this dissertation, I argue that stand-up comedy is a uniquely subversive and resistant communicative act that enables performers to combat the stigma associated with mental illness. Grounding my discussion in literature about mental illness and two of the most common disorders, anxiety and depression, I construct an original performance criticism evaluative framework derived from three anti-stigma-advocacy techniques: protest, educate, and contact. While these techniques offer guidance for any kind of anti-stigma advocacy, I draw them into the realm of anti-mental-illness-stigma advocacy by utilizing my framework in a performance criticism of stand-up performances by Aparna Nancherla, Maria Bamford, Bo Burnham, and Chris Gethard—four comics known for discussing their mental health onstage. Moreover, I weave autoethnographic responses to each performance throughout my analysis to showcase the power of these cases of comedic anti-mental-illness-stigma advocacy to alter my perspective on my own anxiety.Ultimately, this dissertation demonstrates the potential of stand-up comedy as anti-mental-illness-stigma advocacy by chronicling my own growth in response to the work of these comedians. It also identifies aspects of stand-up that may be potentially useful to other kinds of anti-stigma advocacy. Additionally, the framework created and used in this dissertation provides both a rubric for future anti-stigma performance criticism and a blueprint for creating anti-stigma performance. Stand-up comedy is a significant performance genre and stand-up comedians can launch biting critiques that cultivate greater cultural citizenship for the marginalized and disenfranchised. A significant number of people will undoubtedly continue to spot the silly facade of stand-up comedy and look past the deeper insight, even though it can educate an audience, protest misinformation, and provide opportunities for contact between otherwise unfamiliar demographics. My effort here is to value stand-up comedy as a powerful communicative act because it has changed my life and will continue to incite change for many others. And that’s no joke.

Scholarship on humour in the Indian context has hardly looked at how performative humour or comedy intersects with the different axes of social stratification to impact caste groups perched at a disadvantageous position. And although English stand-up comedy in the country is gradually being recognized as an important facet of contemporary popular culture, efforts to see how this genre of performative humour aids and abets caste discrimination is still largely missing in the academic discourse. This study is an attempt to address this knowledge gap. By considering English political stand-up comedy as a subgenre of the wider performative art form, it aims to determine how comedians use political humour to critique the dominant understanding of the nation that the Indian State is trying to peddle to its citizens, and more importantly, if caste forms an analytical tool that informs their critique. This study uses a qualitative discourse analysis methodology to study precisely how caste finds representation in the comedians’ critique of the nation. It selects six political stand-up comedians and examines all of their stand-up comedy clips available for viewing on YouTube. By using a range of theoretical concepts, this research attempts to recognize the important connection between caste and political humour in India. It finds that English political stand-up comedy in India is anti-ritualistic as well as hegemonic. Comedians raise difficult, politically charged topics, normalize the critique of important political developments through humour and in doing this, negotiate the boundaries of free speech. They promote new understandings about the nation that is in stark contrast to the dominant ideology. But at the same time, the domain of English political stand-up comedy is not representative of caste questions. Comedians hardly ever talk about caste, and even when they do, it is mostly a passing remark or a hurried reference. Caste is also not represented in the comedians’ identities since most of them hail from upper caste backgrounds. English political stand-up comedy, then, in spite of its democratizing potential, reflects and reproduces the caste bias inherent in the broader national public sphere. These research findings prompt a discussion on caste in popular culture and institute political humour as a legitimate entry point into the sociological analysis of Indian society. / Graduate / 2022-08-06