Please note: In order to keep Hive up to date and provide users with the best features, we are no longer able to fully support Internet Explorer. The site is still available to you, however some sections of the site may appear broken. We would encourage you to move to a more modern browser like Firefox, Edge or Chrome in order to experience the site fully.

Cracking Up : Black Feminist Comedy in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Century United States, Paperback / softback Book

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

Part of the Studies in Theatre History & Culture series

Paperback / softback

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.

Information

£29.95

 
Free Home Delivery

on all orders

 
Pick up orders

from local bookshops

Information

Also in the Studies in Theatre History & Culture series  |  View all