Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 278-301). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

From our earliest origins in every civilization across the globe, comic performances have fulfilled an important social function. Yet stand-up comedy has not attracted the serious academic inquiry one might expect. This dissertation argues that in the absence of public intellectuals stand-up comics are important to how we talk about and negotiate complicated issues like gender and race. These comic texts are sites of cultural critique, public discourse, tools for articulation, a means of persuasion, and serve to galvanize communities. This dissertation argues that stand-up comedy performances are a vital part of modern American intellectual and social life and are heavily enmeshed in ongoing processes of progressive social change. In the absence of public intellectuals in what is generally an anti-intellectual modern America, Chris Rock, Sarah Silverman, and Louis C. K. are currently three highly relevant stand-up comics who generate and contribute to discourses that galvanize or polarize publics and counterpublics. Their comic performances, recordings, and other artifacts (like internet memes) that live on after the live event circulate in the public sphere and our most quotidian exchanges. They contribute to discourses that move us toward progressive social change and also act as a barometer for where we are as a nation during any particular moment. Through the discourses generated by their performances, their involvement in social dramas, and their role they perform as public intellectuals, stand-up comics are capable of healing, reconciling, or otherwise mediating breaches in the social order. This dissertation uses 1) a critical examination of the construction and performance of the comic persona, 2) a close analysis of the comic routine as an aesthetic text, and finally 3) an examination of social dramas and the discourses they generate to see where and how these comics possibly contribute to progressive social change. This study finds Chris Rock to be a potent mediator, Sarah Silverman a transgressive instigator, and C. K. a subversive healer. This study makes contributions to a wide arrat: of stakeholders: Communication, Sociology, Performance Studies, and Postcolonialism. Finally, I offer new terms to discuss the interaction of comic and audience and directions for future research.

In order to better understand how viewers, critics, journalists and series producers help shape the “quality TV” discourse and position shows within it, this project uses case studies of 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation and Parenthood to dissect how style, narrative and paratexts influence public discourse about “quality” programs both in print and on the Internet. Using Kristen Marthe Lentz’s theories on “quality TV” and “relevance programming,” I examine how each show uses a cinematic style in combination with various strategies such as special episodes, narrative complexity, intertextuality, patriarchal narrative and feminism to align themselves with other “quality” series more readily found on basic and pay-cable, while also allowing viewers and critics on popular culture sites like the A.V. Club to make “quality” comparisons. / text

This report documents the initial inspiration, development, and rewrites that went into the creation of John Gregory Bellina’s screenplay Shut Up and Sing. Furthermore, the following pages trace the evolution of the author’s writing during the entirety of his program experience. / text

Modalities of Freedom argues that comedy and the laughter it ignites is a vital component of feminist and anti-racist community building. The chapters of my dissertation analyze the work of three Black standup comedians from the United States: Wanda Sykes, Jackie Mabley and Mo’Nique. These three women have an outsized presence in standup comedy, but have been chronically underrepresented in academic literature despite their nuanced, complex and emboldening performance styles. I claim that their particular brands of humor are modalities of freedom. That is, under varying social, temporal and cultural contexts, Sykes, Mabley and Mo’Nique resist and expose marginalization and oppression. In turn, their comedic material and the act of laughter bond their audiences and generate anti-racist/feminist coalitions. The first chapter of my dissertation shows how Wanda Sykes employs comedic performance to “crack up” white supremacist historical narratives. That is, Sykes’ comedy functions as historiographical intervention that not only critiques history, but also moves Black lesbian women from silenced subjects to active (re)creators of United States’ collective memory. My chapter on Jackie “Moms” Mabley claims that Mabley’s legacy has been misremembered in both mainstream and scholarly texts. Employing Black queer theoretical frameworks, I trace how Mabley’s standup solidified important precedents for Black female comics in contemporary U.S. performance and generated specific modalities of freedom unique to Black feminist humor. The final chapter of my dissertation analyzes Mo’Nique’s 2007 documentary I Coulda Been Your Cellmate. This film is a live taping of Mo’Nique performing for convicts at the Ohio Reformatory for Women. Mo’Nique’s performance articulates the multiplicities of identity, and builds feminist community across difference. Mo’Nique and the women in the audience demonstrate how laughter is an intimate survival strategy and a freeing act even while under the restriction of state power. In short, my dissertation is an effort to validate how laughter can harness and express the complexities of Black feminist lives, and be a productive site for social change and stability. / text

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This dissertation examines the role of modal verbs and rhetoric in the creation of Shakespeare's comic action. I argue that by focusing on the characters' uses of language in these plays, we can recover a sense of subjectivity and agency for Shakespeare's comic characters, instead of treating them as mere "types" swept along by the force of comic convention. Modal verbs--"can," "may," "must," "ought," and "will"--encode and enact subjectivity at the linguistic level, demonstrating a speaker's perceptions about the action of the main verb: whether a speaker thinks an action is possible or impossible, likely or unlikely, necessary or merely beneficial. Modal verbs therefore indicate an entirely different category of comic action: not just the oversized action of mistaken identity or farce, but the more subtle mental activity that underpins all subsequent action. Likewise, an examination of Shakespeare's comic rhetoric reveals that, far from being inconsequential or merely decorative, it is a force in its own right; I argue that the characters' insistence on the overt use of rhetorical devices, wordplay, and logical debate is a form of action that creates the comic world. Characters use strategies derived from logic and rhetoric in order to persuade themselves and others into positive action, achieving comic endings by verbal means.

This thesis is a study of the life and works of Thomas D'Urfey (1653- 1721), a prolific writer of -plays, poetry and operas during the Restoration period. It places him in the context of the theatre of his time and the difficult conditions in which he worked, showing how obscurity of birth and lack of education affected him in his burning desire for success and financial reward. His relationships with great men illustrate the role of the patron in Augustan society, and his long career in the theatre illuminates the principal developments in English drama between 1676 and 1710. The Introduction provides a brief critical survey of the current state of Restoration comedy criticism and of D'Urfey's place in that criticism. Chapters One and Three are primarily biographical; Chapters Two, Four and Five study his plays; Chapter Six takes a broader view of his non-dramatic writing, and Chapter Seven examines his last three comedies and discusses them as precursors of the novel. The final section of Chapter Seven makes some comparisons between Thomas D'Urfey and other dramatists of the period, especially John Dryden, and argues that there is a special interest in the struggle for recognition of an author generally regarded as a failure. The Conclusion summarises the arguments in the thesis for this re-assessment of D'Urfey's interest and importance. Throughout the thesis D'Urfey's work is shown to have many rewards for the modern reader.

Τα αγγεία της Κάτω Ιταλίας και η αττική κωμωδία του 4ου αιώνα π.Χ. Στην παρούσα μελέτη γίνεται προσπάθεια της όσο το δυνατόν αντικειμενικής παρουσίασης των επιστημονικών θέσεων σχετικά με το ζήτημα των αγγείων της Κάτω Ιταλίας. Ως αντικείμενο αναφοράς της μελέτης έχουν επιλεγεί τέσσερα αγγεία που κατατάσονται από τους μελετητές στην ομάδα των αγγείων της Κάτω Ιταλίας και, σύμφωνα με αρκετούς, πρέπει να αποκαλούνται «φλυακικά» καθώς εμφανίζουν ορισμένα τυπικά, χαρακτηριστικά στοιχεία. Η επιλογή των συγκεκριμένων αγγείων οφείλεται σε ορισμένες ιδιαιτερότητές τους. Οι απεικονίσεις τους διακρίνονται για τη χαρακτηριστικά ρεαλιστική αποτύπωση των μορφών, οι οποίες διαγράφονται με μεγάλη λεπτομέρεια όσον αφορά την ενδυματολογική τους εμφάνιση και τα χαρακτηριστικά του προσωπείου τους. Επιπλέον, σε ένα από αυτά ζωηρές χειρονομίες συνοδεύονται από την ύπαρξη «φράσεων». Επιπροσθέτως, και με στόχο τη δημιουργία ενός πλαισίου κατανόησης του θέματος, δίνονται στοιχεία για τη μορφή του θεάτρου την Κλασική Εποχή, καθώς το φλυακικό δράμα, αν και σχεδόν άγνωστο ως κείμενο, αντιμετωπίζεται και ως θεατρικό δρώμενο. Τέλος, και με δεδομένο ότι σε ένα από τα υπό μελέτη αγγεία απεικονίζεται ο μύθος του Τήλεφου, γίνεται μια ευρεία αναφορά στις απεικονίσεις του συγκεκριμένου θέματος. / Vases of South Italy and Attic comedy of the 4th century BC In the present study an effort is made possible objective presentation of scientific positions on the issue of vases of Lower Italy.

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