Published
Jun 20, 2018Page count
216 pagesISBN
978-1529200157Dimensions
198 x 129 mmImprint
Bristol University PressPublished
Jun 20, 2018Page count
216 pagesISBN
978-1529200171Imprint
Bristol University PressPublished
Jun 20, 2018Page count
216 pagesISBN
978-1529200188Imprint
Bristol University Press
Comedy and Critique
In the media
'League of Gentlemen: how some comedy saves itself from the embarrassment of ageing' in The Conversation
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.
"Provides a stimulating account of the way in which stand-up comedians respond to their sociological contexts and offers valuable insights into how comedians ‘do’ sociology." Sophie Quirk, University of Kent
Dr. Daniel R. Smith is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Anglia Ruskin University. His research interests are in the sociology of class and culture, identity and popular culture as well as social media and celebrity. Along with Comedy & Critique, he is the author of Elites, Race and Nationhood: The Branded Gentry.
Introduction;
I: Analytical Part;
The Art of Stand-up Comedy;
The Professionalization of Stand-up Comedy;
II: Synthetic Part;
Representation;
Persona;
III: Critical Part;
The Critique of Comic Reason.
