Cracking Up: Black Feminist Comedy in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Century United States by Wood, Katelyn Hale
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Cracking Up: Black Feminist Comedy in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Century United States by Wood, Katelyn Hale

Cracking Up: Black Feminist Comedy in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Century United States

University of Iowa Press
Price:
$35.00

Description

Cracking Up archives and analyzes Black feminist stand-up comedy in the United States over the past sixty years. Looking closely at the work of Jackie "Moms" Mabley, Mo'Nique, Wanda Sykes, Sasheer Zamata, Sam Jay, Phoebe Robinson, Jessica Williams, Amanda Seales, and Michelle Buteau, this book shows how Black feminist comedy and the laughter it ignites are vital components of feminist, queer, and anti-racist protest.

Katelyn Hale Wood interprets these artists not as tokens in a white, male-dominated field, but as part of a continuous history of Black feminist performance and presence. Broadly, Cracking Up frames stand-up comedy as an important platform from which to examine citizenship in the United States, articulate Black feminist political thought, and subvert structures of power. Wood also champions comedic performance and theatre history as imperative contexts for advancing historical studies of race, gender, and sexuality. From the comedy routines popular on Black vaudeville circuits to stand-up on contemporary social media platforms, Cracking Up excavates an overlooked history of Black women who have made the art of joke-telling a key part of radical performance and political engagement.

Author: Katelyn Hale Wood
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
Published: 06/01/2021
Pages: 204
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 9.00h x 5.90w x 0.70d
ISBN13: 9781609387723
ISBN10: 1609387724
BISAC Categories:
- Performing Arts | Comedy
- Social Science | Ethnic Studies | American | African American & Black Studies
- Social Science | Women's Studies

About the Author

Katelyn Hale Wood is assistant professor of theatre history at the University of Virginia. Their previous writing has been published in Performance Matters, Theatre Topics, QED: A Journal in GLTBQ Worldmaking, Departures in Critical Qualitative Research, and the Routledge Companion to African American Theatre and Performance. Wood lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.