Comedy and Critique: Stand-Up Comedy and the Professional Ethos of Laughter

by Daniel R. Smith

Stand-up comedy has become a vehicle for social and cultural critique, from the existential to the political. Sociologists, philosophers, and anthropologists have suggested that comedy is a form of "magic," a type of special behavior that provokes a change in the perception of ordinary reality. Those claims are usually backed up with examples from Western history--carnival, court jesters, the Jewish shtetl--or from the anthropological record. In this...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1529200156
• ISBN13: 9781529200157
• Release Date: July 2018
• Publisher: Bristol University Press
• Length: 216 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.3" x 8.1"