Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2020 -

Cynthia Willett (philosophy, Emory) and Julie Willett (history, Texas Tech) offer a study of how humor can be used not only as a tool of resistance by the socially disempowered but also as a tool of social and political transformation. Grounded in feminist and queer theory and examining a gamut of subversive comedy, the volume is interdisciplinary and runs deeper than other recent books on comedy for social justice or radical inclusion. Positing what they call fumerism--a neologism referring to feminist humor, fuming, and fun--the authors first examine how comics such as Margaret Cho and Wanda Sykes subvert social order to create a more inclusive and equal society. Not content to focus only on fumerism, the authors consider how Muslim comics use humor to debate and combat post-9/11 American nationalism, how the physiology of laughing is transformative, and how Jeff Ross roasting prisoners and police creates solidaric empathy before going on to examine how Tig Notaro and Hannah Gadsby reconceptualize humor through their own "tragic" experience, thus challenging humor theory itself. Theoretically consistent with, but also straining the limits of, the volume's themes and theories is a chapter on animal laughter and humor.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers.