Transgressive Humor of American Women Writers

This collection *is the first to focus on the transgressive and transformative power of American female humorists. It explores the work of authors and comediennes such as Carolyn Wells, Lucille Clifton, Mary McCarthy, Lynne Tillman, Constance Rourke, Roz Chast, Amy Schumer and Samantha Bee, and the ways in which their humor challenges gendered norms and assumptions through the use of irony, satire, parody, and wit. The chapters draw from the experiences of women from a variety of racial, class, and gender identities and encompass a variety of genres and comedic forms including poetry, fiction, prose, autobiography, graphic memoir, comedic performance, and new media. Transgressive Humor of American Women Writers* will appeal to a general educated readership as well as to those interested in women's and gender studies, humor studies, urban studies, American literature and cultural studies, and media studies.

Surveys a wide range of female writers and comedians starting with the overlooked Carolyn Wells through Mary McCarthy, Alison Bechdel, Lucille Clifton, Lena Dunham, and Tina Fey Positions the discussion of humor within a larger framework about gender, women's voices, and the history of women's writing Draws on various theories of humor, from the so-called superiority theory to the incongruity theory to the relief theory Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Autorentext

Sabrina Fuchs Abrams is Associate Professor of English in the School for Graduate Studies at the State University of New York, Empire State College. She is the author of Mary McCarthy: Gender, Politics and the Postwar Intellectual and editor of Literature of New York. She is currently working on a book, The Politics of Humor: New York Women of Wit, and is founder and chair of the Mary McCarthy Society.

Klappentext
This collection *is the first to focus on the iconoclastic and transformative power of American female humorists. It explores the work of authors and comediennes such as Samantha Bee, Amy Schumer, Lucille Clifton, Constance Rourke, Carolyn Wells, and Lynne Tillman while drawing on various theories of humor including the incongruity superiority/disparagement, and relief theories. The chapters draw from the experiences of women from a variety of racial, class, and gender identities and encompass a variety of genres and comedic forms including poetry, fiction, prose, autobiography, graphic memoir, comedic performance, and new media.Transgressive Humor of American Women Writers* will appeal to a general educated readership as well as to those interested in women's and gender studies, humor studies, urban studies, American literature and cultural studies, and media studies.

Zusammenfassung

This collection*is the first to focus on the transgressive and transformative power of American female humorists. It explores the work of authors and comediennes such as Carolyn Wells, Lucille Clifton, Mary McCarthy, Lynne Tillman, Constance Rourke, Roz Chast, Amy Schumer and Samantha Bee, and the ways in which their humor challenges gendered norms and assumptions through the use of irony, satire, parody, and wit. The chapters draw from the experiences of women from a variety of racial, class, and gender identities and encompass a variety of genres and comedic forms including poetry, fiction, prose, autobiography, graphic memoir, comedic performance, and new media. Transgressive Humor of American Women Writers* will appeal to a general educated readership as well as to those interested in women's and gender studies, humor studies, urban studies, American literature and cultural studies, and media studies.

Inhalt

.-1 Introduction- No Joke: Transgressive Humor of American Women Writers.- 2: 'To amuse intelligently and cleverly': Carolyn Wells and Literary Parody.- 3: From Headlines to Punchlines: Suffragist Humorists in the Popular Press.- 4: The Scholarly Transgressions of Constance Rourke.- 5: Embattled Embodiment: The Sexual/ Intellectual Politics of Humor in Mary McCarthy's Writing.- 6: Humor as Clap Back in Lucille Clifton's Poetry.-7: Fidel and Gummy Bears?: Transgressive Humor in Contemporary Latina Fiction.- 8: Humor, Gentrification, and the Conservation of Downtown New York in Lynne.- 9: Funny Women: Political Transgressions and Celebrity Autobiography.-10: Roz Chast: From Whimsy to Transgression.- 11: 'My Mom's a Cunt': New Bawds Ride the Fourth Wave.-12: Dueling Discourses: The Female Comic's Double-Bind in the New Media Age.