Laughing Mad

In Laughing Mad , Bambi Haggins looks at how this transition occurred in a variety of media and shows how this integration has paved the way for black comedians and their audiences to affect each other. Historically, African American performers have been able to use comedy as a pedagogic tool, interjecting astute observations about race relations while the audience is laughing. And yet, Haggins makes the convincing argument that the potential of African American comedy remains fundamentally unfulfilled as the performance of blackness continues to be made culturally digestible for mass consumption.

Reassessing the meanings of "black humor" and "dark satire," Laughing Fit to Kill illustrates how black comedians, writers, and artists have deftly deployed various modes of comedic "conjuring"--the absurd, the grotesque, and the strategic expression of racial stereotypes--to redress not only the past injustices of slavery and racism in America but also their legacy in the present. Focusing on representations of slavery in the post-civil rights era, Carpio explores stereotypes in Richard Pryor's groundbreaking stand-up act and the outrageous comedy of Chappelle's Show to demonstrate how deeply indebted they are to the sly social criticism embedded in the profoundly ironic nineteenth-century fiction of William Wells Brown and Charles W. Chesnutt. Similarly, she reveals how the iconoclastic literary works of Ishmael Reed and Suzan-Lori Parks use satire, hyperbole, and burlesque humor to represent a violent history and to take on issues of racial injustice. With an abundance of illustrations, Carpio also extends her discussion of radical black comedy to the visual arts as she reveals how the use of subversive appropriation by Kara Walker and Robert Colescott cleverly lampoons the iconography of slavery. Ultimately, Laughing Fit to Kill offers a unique look at the bold, complex, and just plain funny ways that African American artists have used laughter to critique slavery's dark legacy.

In this book, a range of international scholars offers a comprehensive study of this significant and influential figure, covering his French and English-language films and videos, and framing Gondry as a transnational auteur whose work provides insight into both French/European and American cinematic and cultural identity.

“Hold tight. The way to go mad without losing your mind is sometimes unruly.” So begins La Marr Jurelle Bruce's urgent provocation and poignant meditation on madness in black radical art. Bruce theorizes four overlapping meanings of madness: the lived experience of an unruly mind, the psychiatric category of serious mental illness, the emotional state also known as “rage,” and any drastic deviation from psychosocial norms. With care and verve, he explores the mad in the literature of Amiri Baraka, Gayl Jones, and Ntozake Shange; in the jazz repertoires of Buddy Bolden, Sun Ra, and Charles Mingus; in the comedic performances of Richard Pryor and Dave Chappelle; in the protest music of Nina Simone, Lauryn Hill, and Kendrick Lamar, and beyond. These artists activate madness as content, form, aesthetic, strategy, philosophy, and energy in an enduring black radical tradition. Joining this tradition, Bruce mobilizes a set of interpretive practices, affective dispositions, political principles, and existential orientations that he calls “mad methodology.” Ultimately, How to Go Mad without Losing Your Mind is both a study and an act of critical, ethical, radical madness.

Can you really die from laughing too hard? Between 1870 and 1920, hundreds of women suffered such a fate—or so a slew of sensationalist obituaries would have us believe. How could laughter be fatal, and what do these reports of women’s risible deaths tell us about the politics of female joy? Maggie Hennefeld reveals the forgotten histories of “hysterical laughter,” exploring how women’s amusement has been theorized and demonized, suppressed and exploited. In nineteenth-century medicine and culture, hysteria was an ailment that afflicted unruly women on the cusp of emotional or nervous breakdown. Cinema, Hennefeld argues, made it possible for women to laugh outrageously as never before, with irreversible social and political consequences. As female enjoyment became a surefire promise of profitability, alarmist tales of women laughing themselves to death epitomized the tension between subversive pleasure and its violent repression. Hennefeld traces the social politics of women’s laughter from the heyday of nineteenth-century sentimentalism to the collective euphoria of early film spectatorship, traversing contagious dancing outbreaks, hysteria photography, madwomen’s cackling, cinematic close-ups, and screenings of slapstick movies in mental asylums. Placing little-known silent films and an archive of remarkable, often unusual texts in conversation with affect theory, comedy studies, and feminist film theory, this book makes a timely case for the power of hysterical laughter to change the world.

Perhaps best known for his highly acclaimed, short-lived Comedy Central program Chappelle's Show, Dave Chappelle is widely regarded as one of today's most culturally significant comedians. Through the sketch comedy show and his stand-up act, Chappelle has offered truly memorable commentary on racial and ethnic tensions in American society. This book assembles 13 essays that examine motifs common in Chappelle's comedy, including technology and digital culture; race, gender, and ethnicity; economics and politics; music, television, film, and performance; and memory, language, and identity.

In the early 1890s, black performer Bob Cole turned blackface minstrelsy on its head with his nationally recognized whiteface creation, a character he called Willie Wayside. Just over a century later, hiphop star Busta Rhymes performed a whiteface superco

Kit hung up her brass knuckles, but the shadows of her past lingered. Now they're back to claim her. Kit "Fadulous" Hamley, magazine editor, activist and former punk rocker, is a well-known troublemaker. She works tirelessly to hold local authorities to account. Some say she's making up for her criminal youth. Others accuse her of witchcraft. Only a handful of people know how dark her secrets really are. When an old friend warns Kit that a former rival has resurfaced, those secrets start to resurface. People have gone missing, someone is stalking Kit, and the gang she abandoned are scared stiff. Kit herself is a target, and if she can't unravel exactly how this new feud connects with her past mistakes, it could kill her. Decades older, a little wiser, and contrary as ever, Kit's going to remind them all what a punk witch can do. Get ready to enter a world of magic, rebellion, and punk rock. With its electrifying energy, fierce female characters and tense twists, this book will have you cheering for the witches of Dyer Street, whether you're a fan of fantasy or a rebel at heart. Pick up your copy today – you won't be able to put it down. *This is a standalone thriller – you don't need to have read the other Ordshaw books to enjoy it!* What reviewers are saying about Dyer Street: "If you're looking for a different type of witchy read this spooky season, I highly suggest giving this beauty of a book a chance. Loved it." - Whispers & Wonder "What a great story! ... my new favourite entry into the Ordshaw Universe – the characters made this one a huge win" - Queen's Book Asylum "I loved this book...an easy story to fly through" – Beckys Books "a refreshingly dark, thrilling and funny contemporary fantasy!" – Dini Panda Reads "My favourite Ordshaw adventure yet...the perfect mix of elements" – Lynn's Books "fantastically well written with excellent pacing" – Damien Larkin, Author "fast-paced and fascinating. There are realistic characters that grabbed my attention and held me hostage until the last page...I throughly enjoyed it and highly recommend it!" – Ami, Reader Review "Phil Williams has nailed it yet again" – Phil Parker, Author "cranked to 11 all the way through, and that's just how I like it" – Travis M. Riddle, Author "An excellent, very well-written story, with a diverse mix of unique and fascinating characters." – Adawia, Reader Review "a fantastic return to Ordshaw" – Dream Come Review "Badass young women working to use magic and music to change their lives and their neighborhood? Yes, please!" -–Heather Barksdale