Lit: Literature Interpretation Theory

Women Making Humor

This special issue is interested in exploring how we can draw upon and connect Critical Humor Theory and Intersectional Feminist Studies to think about gender and humor together. How do women writers act as agents or producers of humor, not as objects or targets of it? How do women take agency to use humor not just for entertainment, but for political ends? What techniques or strategies do they deploy? If, as Audrey Bilger has argued, humor worked as a mask for social critique or the expression of anger in the subversive comedy of 18th- and 19th-century writers like Jane Austen and Fanny Burney, how does it work now in the work of contemporary 20th- and 21st-century women writers? What constraints do women writers of humor now face? If humor provides psychic relief, healing, or a sense of control over oppressive circumstances (as many, including Freud, have argued), how does humor and/or laughter enable women (both writers and characters) to cope with various challenges, to reach those not otherwise inclined to listen, or to build community and solidarity? How does comedy or satire do cultural work, in particular for feminist goals? What are the limits, if any, of the use of humor? When does humor disappear in the work of a comic writer and what is the significance of that disappearance? How can women use humor to push back against regressive or right-wing attacks, which are often themselves presented in the guise of humor?

Given that women in various patriarchal societies have often been both forbidden to laugh (usually at male authority, as Anca Parvaluscu notes) and chastised for not having a sense of humor (usually about sexist jokes, as Susan Douglas describes), how do women writers deploy humor for their own ends? How do they engage (or engage with) power through humor? Can we see women’s initiation or production of humor as itself a feminist act (as Regina Barreca suggests)? When might women’s humor not be feminist? How can we think about what Cynthia Willett and Julie Willett in their recent book Uproarious term “fumerism” (feminist anger and joy, the belly laugh, or laughter from below) in relation to written work by women, especially from marginalized communities?

This issue is not limited to any particular genre, time period, or geographical region; we welcome essays on literature in a variety of genres (drama, fiction, autofiction, nonfiction, memoir, graphic comics), historical moments, and places. We are especially interested in essays that address the work of writers who use humor to address forms of minoritization: gender, race, (post)coloniality, disability, and more.