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Laughing Fit to Kill : Black Humor in the Fictions of Slavery by Glenda Carpio (2008, Trade Paperback)

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Similarly, she reveals how the iconoclastic literary works of Ishmael Reed and Suzan-Lori Parks use satire, hyperbole, and burlesque humor to represent a violent history and to take on issues of racial injustice.

About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherOxford University Press, Incorporated

ISBN-100195304691

ISBN-139780195304695

eBay Product ID (ePID)61195327

Product Key Features

Book TitleLaughing FIT to Kill : Black Humor in the Fictions of Slavery

Number of Pages304 Pages

LanguageEnglish

Publication Year2008

TopicAmerican / African American

IllustratorYes

GenreLiterary Criticism, Literary Collections

AuthorGlenda Carpio

FormatTrade Paperback

Dimensions

Item Height1.1 in

Item Weight16 Oz

Item Length6.1 in

Item Width9.2 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceTrade

LCCN2007-041364

Reviews"One of the most groundbreaking critical studies of black humor in recent memory."--Daphne A. Brooks, Princeton University "Glenda Carpio has written a marvelously compelling and seminal study of the rich and radical tradition of the uses of black humor, satire, and wit to confront even the most painful aspects of the African American past. This is a delightfully original contribution to the historical and literary scholarship about slavery."--Henry Louis Gates Jr., Harvard University "Within this theoretically rich and fundamentally interdisciplinary project, Glenda Carpio uses the laugh as both a subject of study and a methodology for analyzing texts ranging from visual art and popular culture to literature and theater. Her book takes a most innovative and insightful approach to the question of how the legacy of slavery continues to resonate within the African American cultural imaginary."--Harry J. Elam Jr., Stanford University "Laughingis a thorny, fascinating and complex study of black artists - writers, comedians, painters - who use humor to redress the horrors of slavery and its ghosts that linger in the public imagination."--Chris Vognar,The Dallas Morning News, shows us the resilient power of African-American traditions of humor and comedy, and the almost as resilient power of racist stereotypes and discourses, "An exceptionally well-executed and original piece of scholarship...Carpio's account is compelling, doggedly argued, skillfully executed, and somehow simultaneously both focused and sweeping. For readers interested in humor scholarship, or African-American culture history, or both,Laughing Fit ToKillabsolutely deserves a place on the bookshelf." --Studies in American Humor "One of the most groundbreaking critical studies of black humor in recent memory."--Daphne A. Brooks, Princeton University "Glenda Carpio has written a marvelously compelling and seminal study of the rich and radical tradition of the uses of black humor, satire, and wit to confront even the most painful aspects of the African American past. This is a delightfully original contribution to the historical and literary scholarship about slavery."--Henry Louis Gates Jr., Harvard University "Within this theoretically rich and fundamentally interdisciplinary project, Glenda Carpio uses the laugh as both a subject of study and a methodology for analyzing texts ranging from visual art and popular culture to literature and theater. Her book takes a most innovative and insightful approach to the question of how the legacy of slavery continues to resonate within the African American cultural imaginary."--Harry J. Elam Jr., Stanford University "Laughingis a thorny, fascinating and complex study of black artists - writers, comedians, painters - who use humor to redress the horrors of slavery and its ghosts that linger in the public imagination."--Chris Vognar,The Dallas Morning News, "An exceptionally well-executed and original piece of scholarship...Carpio's account is compelling, doggedly argued, skillfully executed, and somehow simultaneously both focused and sweeping. For readers interested in humor scholarship, or African-American culture history, or both, Laughing Fit To Kill absolutely deserves a place on the bookshelf." --Studies in American Humor"One of the most groundbreaking critical studies of black humor in recent memory."--Daphne A. Brooks, Princeton University"Glenda Carpio has written a marvelously compelling and seminal study of the rich and radical tradition of the uses of black humor, satire, and wit to confront even the most painful aspects of the African American past. This is a delightfully original contribution to the historical and literary scholarship about slavery."--Henry Louis Gates Jr., Harvard University"Within this theoretically rich and fundamentally interdisciplinary project, Glenda Carpio uses the laugh as both a subject of study and a methodology for analyzing texts ranging from visual art and popular culture to literature and theater. Her book takes a most innovative and insightful approach to the question of how the legacy of slavery continues to resonate within the African American cultural imaginary."--Harry J. Elam Jr., Stanford University"Laughing is a thorny, fascinating and complex study of black artists - writers, comedians, painters - who use humor to redress the horrors of slavery and its ghosts that linger in the public imagination."--Chris Vognar, The Dallas Morning News, "An exceptionally well-executed and original piece of scholarship...Carpio's account is compelling, doggedly argued, skillfully executed, and somehow simultaneously both focused and sweeping. For readers interested in humor scholarship, or African-American culture history, or both, Laughing Fit To Kill absolutely deserves a place on the bookshelf." --Studies in American Humor "One of the most groundbreaking critical studies of black humor in recent memory."--Daphne A. Brooks, Princeton University "Glenda Carpio has written a marvelously compelling and seminal study of the rich and radical tradition of the uses of black humor, satire, and wit to confront even the most painful aspects of the African American past. This is a delightfully original contribution to the historical and literary scholarship about slavery."--Henry Louis Gates Jr., Harvard University "Within this theoretically rich and fundamentally interdisciplinary project, Glenda Carpio uses the laugh as both a subject of study and a methodology for analyzing texts ranging from visual art and popular culture to literature and theater. Her book takes a most innovative and insightful approach to the question of how the legacy of slavery continues to resonate within the African American cultural imaginary."--Harry J. Elam Jr., Stanford University "Laughing is a thorny, fascinating and complex study of black artists - writers, comedians, painters - who use humor to redress the horrors of slavery and its ghosts that linger in the public imagination."--Chris Vognar, The Dallas Morning News

Table Of ContentIntroduction1. "Laffin fit ter kill:" Black Humor in the Fiction of William Wells Brown and Charles W. Chesnutt2. The Conjurer Recoils: Slavery in Richard Prio and Chappelle's Show3. Conjuring the Mysteries of Slavery: Voodoo, Fetishism, and Stereotype in Ishmael Reed's Flight to Canada4. "A Comedy of the Grotesque" Robert Colescott, Kara Walker and the Iconography of Slavery5. The Tragicomedy of Slavery in Suzan-Lori Parks' Early PlaysBibliography

SynopsisModern black humor represents a rich history of radical innovation stretching back to the antebellum period. Laughing Fit to Kill reveals how black writers, artists, and comedians have used humor across two centuries as a uniquely powerful response to forced migration and enslavement. Glenda Carpio traces how, through various modes of "conjuring," through gothic, grotesque and absurdist slapstick, through stinging satire, hyperbole, and burlesque, and through the strategic expression of racial stereotype itself, black humorists of all sorts have enacted "rituals of redress." In highlighting the tradition and tropes of black humorists, Carpio illuminates the reach of slavery's long arm into our contemporary popular culture. She convincingly demonstrates the ways that, for instance, Richard Pryor and Dave Chappelle's modes of post-Civil Rights tragicomedy are deeply indebted to that of William Wells Brown and Charles Chesnutt's 19th-century comedic conjuring. Likewise, she reveals how contemporary iconoclasts such as Ishmael Reed and Suzan-Lori Parks owe much to the intricate satiric grammar of black linguistic expression rooted in slavery. Carpio also demonstrates how Robert Colescott's 1970s paintings and Kara Walker's silhouette installations use a visual vocabulary to extend comedy in a visual register. The jokes in this tradition are bawdy, brutal, horrific and insurgent, and they have yet to be fully understood. Laughing Fit to Kill provides a new critical lexicon for understanding the jabbing punch-lines that have followed slavery's long legacy., Reassessing the meaning of "black humor," and "dark satire," Glenda Carpio traces a tradition in which black American humorists innovated sharp-edged, occasionally gruesome, and sometimes obscene modes of surrealist humor, to represent the brutality of chattel slavery and its legacy in contemporary culture., Reassessing the meanings of "black humor" and "dark satire," Laughing Fit to Kill illustrates how black comedians, writers, and artists have deftly deployed various modes of comedic "conjuring"--the absurd, the grotesque, and the strategic expression of racial stereotypes--to redress not only the past injustices of slavery and racism in America but also their legacy in the present. Focusing on representations of slavery in the post-civil rights era, Carpio explores stereotypes in Richard Pryor's groundbreaking stand-up act and the outrageous comedy of Chappelle's Show to demonstrate how deeply indebted they are to the sly social criticism embedded in the profoundly ironic nineteenth-century fiction of William Wells Brown and Charles W. Chesnutt. Similarly, she reveals how the iconoclastic literary works of Ishmael Reed and Suzan-Lori Parks use satire, hyperbole, and burlesque humor to represent a violent history and to take on issues of racial injustice. With an abundance of illustrations, Carpio also extends her discussion of radical black comedy to the visual arts as she reveals how the use of subversive appropriation by Kara Walker and Robert Colescott cleverly lampoons the iconography of slavery. Ultimately, Laughing Fit to Kill offers a unique look at the bold, complex, and just plain funny ways that African American artists have used laughter to critique slavery's dark legacy.

LC Classification NumberPS153.N5C373 2008