Sanders, Barry. Sudden Glory: Laughter as Subversive History. Boston: Beacon Press, 1995.

Going back to ancient Hebrew, Egyptian and Greek writing, artwork and religion, this readable and accessible book traces the history of laughter in Western culture. For instance, Sanders open the book by referencing a 3^rd century Egyptian alchemical papyrus in which the Creator laughs of chaos, with bursts of laughter bringing forth all aspects of creation (1). Sanders notes that the history of laughter (in the west) and the structure of modern humour is built on a tradition that comes to us via the Greek and Latin foundation of much of western knowledge. As such, he notes that a bias towards both a white, male humorist and laugher is built into the tradition to some degree (26). At the same time, Sanders describes the modern joke as stemming from the collision of this intellectual, rhetorical world with the vernacular, oral world (26). Sanders thus situates the study of laughter (and I would argue humour as well) within cultural studies, conceived as a combination of critical and aesthetic theory with everyday experience and subjectivity.

One of the key strands in this book follows laughter's association with power. He writes, "From the point of view of the marginalized and the disenfranchised, if they cannot participate in the writing of history, they can at least try to erase it. To pull this off, however, one must realize that while a laugh can turn the subtleties of power inside out, making them suddenly visible, it can also turn power into pure brutality, for power, finally, has nothing to say to laughter—it remains dumb in the silent sense, dumb-founded in the weakest way. When it responds, it can only resort to mere physicality –torture, imprisonment, or even death" (25). This reading of power in relation to laughter, or their interplay, is interesting particularly alongside a Foucauldian notion of power as negotiated. I would argue, though, that the power he is describing is equally tied to the provocation of such laughter, or humour. In other words, something must provoke the laughing-at-power that he describes. At the same time, the violent response of the structure of power to laughter suggests that joking and humour are both forces around which both resistance and repression congeal. The orientation towards change is captured in his statement, "everyone laughs in the future tense" (32).

Sanders notes that the decoupling of the word and its usage in the modern period occurs alongside "an artistic revolution of laughter, in surrealism and dada" (31). He speculates that "joking may characterize best the breaking that postmodernists seem to relish so much" (31). These statements reinforce my idea the contemporary sense of humour can be traced to the artistic and literary movements of modernism.

Boskin, Joseph. Rebellious Laughter: People’s Humor in American Culture

Boskin, Joseph. Rebellious Laughter: People’s Humor in American Culture. Syracuse University Press, 1997.

A social history of 'joking' in America since the 1950s that argues for the importance of humour as a measure of zeitgeist and an influential social force surpassed only by popular music in its daily cultural impact. Joke cycles, understand as historical and social entities, form the central object of study.

Bolskin argues that the humour of this period was distinctly rebellious and informed political, racial and social debates, though this might be somewhat called into question by Boskin's identification of Saturday Night Live as the "most barbed" show on American television. Boskin suggests that certain comedians function in a manner akin to "shamans" bringing forth social tensions and taboos and confronting them. Humour is thus primarily characterised as a positive force of "resistance and reconciliation." Humor is directly identified as a liberal force and as a means to build ocmmunity.

Billig, Michael. Laughter and Ridicule: Towards a Social Critique of Humour

Billig, Michael. Laughter and Ridicule: Towards a Social Critique of Humour. London: Sage, 2005.

Billig offers a fairly comprehensive historical account of the key texts of humour theory from a perspective directly at odds with that offered by conventional "humor studies." Billig goes perhaps too far in the opposite direction though, declaring all humour to be an act of aggressive social control and power with the aim to humiliate and discipline its subject (194-9). In Billig's account, humour is cruel and dominating, and he therefore can function as a useful illustration of a particular anlytic extreme.

Also useful is Billig's argument that humour has become a social obligation, and very little is now considered outside the purview of humour (11-5), such that humour should be considered a form of conformity, not rebellion. Moreover, Billig asserts that it is mistaken to make any distinction between positive and negative humour (22-5), such as those offered by Zupančič and Eco, and instead he argues that all humour is a rejection of negative and critical thinking that results in a conservative mindset (30). Such misunderstandings are argued to arise from an approach that treats humour as a cognitive and intellectual, rather than emotional, phenomenon, and which thereby abstracts humour out from the social conditions wherein it operates (64-6). Socially understood, laughter is never kind-hearted, it always arises out of a desire to ridicule and discipline (134-6). In political terms, this ridicule is always on the side of the powerful, and thus cannot constitute a rebellion of any sort: in fact, Billig asserts, any attempt to conjoin political dissent with humour, robs any radical or revolutionary action of its power (209-12). In these claims, Billig represents the other dominant strain of contemporary humour theory – opposed to the carnivalesque tradition – which regards humour as Adorno does pleasure, an acritical and disempowering force that, in addition, acts to sustain social discipline through humiliation: a profoundly conservative politics of humour. Billig thus rejects any distinction between carnivalesque positive and repressive negative humour because in his conception all humour is inherently tied into normative demonstrations of superiority and indifference for human life, and thus can only be used to reaffirm, not subvert, existing social power structures

Billig offers an interpretation that holds that the function of humour may be quite different from the humorist’s intention; thus, a joke that is intended to serve a subversive function may be revealed to function conservatively. This interpretation is supported through recourse to the Freudian notion of the “tendentious joke,” a form of humour that expresses hostile or obscene thoughts (Billig 154).

Zoglin, Richard. Comedy at the Edge.

Zoglin, Richard. Comedy at the Edge. NewYork, NY: Bloomsbury, 2008.

A series of biographical vignettes exploring influential American Stand-up comedians from Larry Bruce through Jerry Seinfeld. Zoglin frames his subject within their political contexts and the politically iconoclastic force of comedy in conflict with commericial impulses is a constant theme by which each performer is measured. Popular and non-theoretical, but perhaps all the better for this, as Zoglin does not attempt to force his musings on the political role of comedy into any of the pre-formed boxes. Worthwhile as a historical source, though too in awe of its material and undeveloped in its narrative of 'selling-out' to offer usefully critical comment.