First published in 1992, the twenty-one original essays in this volume explore the way women have used humor to break down cultural stereotypes between the genders. Examples from literature and the performing arts deal with humor and violence, humor and disability, humor and the supposition of women’s shame, lesbian and ethnic humor, and particularly women’s responses to men’s humor. The essayists present traditional issues from new perspectives and take us from Italy in the Renaissance to today’s New York comedy clubs. They may make you laugh; they may make you nervous. They will certainly make you reevaluate the importance of placing women at the center of a discussion of comedy.
Acknowledgements. List of Contributors. 1. Making Trouble: An Introduction Regina Barreca 2. What to Do with Helen Keller Jokes: A Feminist Act Mary Klages 3. Just Kidding: Gender and Conversational Humor Mary Crawford 4. Roseanne Barr: Canned Laughter – Containing the Subject Siân Mile 5. Belly Laughs and Naked Rage: Resisting Humor in Karen Finley’s Performance Art Maria Pramaggiore 6. Sylvia Talks Back Kayann Short 7. Why Women Cartoonists are Rare, and Why That’s Important Betty Swords 8. Return the Favor Laura Kightlinger 9. The Parallel Lives of Kathy and Mo Brenda Gross 10. The Politics of Humor: An Interview with Margaret Drabble Ian Wojcik-Andrews 11. Wendy Cope’s Struggle with Strugnell in Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis, Nicola Thompson 12. A Duel of Wits and the Lesbian Romance Novel or Verbal Intercourse in Fictional Regency England Catrióna Rueda Esquibel 13. Louise Erdrich as Nanapush Sharon Manybeads Bowers 14. Confirming the Place of "The Other": Gender and Ethnic Identity in Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior, Khani Begum 15. Feminist Humorist of the 1920s: The "Little Insurrections" of Florence Guy Seabury Thomas Grant 16. Irony and Ambiguity in Grace King’s "Monsieur Motte" Zita Z. Dresner 17. Violence and Comedy in the Works of Flannery O’Connor Mark Walters 18. Laughter as Feminine Power in The Color Purple and A Question of Silence, Judy Elsley 19. The Goblin Ha-Ha: Hidden Smiles and Open Laughter in Jane Eyre, Robin Jones 20. The Art of Courting Women’s Laughter Bette Talvacchia 21. The Ancestral Laughter of the Streets: Humor in Muriel Spark’s Earlier Works Regina Barreca. Index.
Biography
Regina Barreca, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of English Literature at The University of Connecticut.
