Comedy and critique: stand-up comedy and the professional ethos of laughter

Smith, Daniel R. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1004-9487 2018. Comedy and critique: stand-up comedy and the professional ethos of laughter. Bristol: Bristol University Press. 10.2307/j.ctv56fgq1

Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

Comedy and Critique explores British professional stand-up comedy in the wake of the Alternative Comedy movement of the late twentieth century, seeing it as an extension of the politics of the New Left: standing up for oneself as anti-racist, feminist and open to a queering of self and social institutions. Daniel Smith demonstrates that the comic sensibility pervading contemporary humour is as much ‘speaking truth to power’ as it is realising one’s position ‘in’ power. The professionalisation of New Left humour offers a challenge to social and cultural critique. Stand-up comedy has made us all sociologists of self, identity and cultural power while also resigning us to a place where a comic sensibility becomes an acknowledgment of the necessity of social change.

Item Type:	Book
Book Type:	Authored Book
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Social Sciences (Includes Criminology and Education)
Publisher:	Bristol University Press
ISBN:	9781529200157
Last Modified:	24 Oct 2022 08:39
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/118360

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item