Women and Comedy: History, Theory, Practice presents the most current international scholarship on the complexity and subversive potential of women's comedic speech, literature, and performance. Earlier comedy theorists such as Freud and Bergson did not envision women as either the agents or audiences of comedy, only as its targets. Only more recently have scholarly studies of comedy begun to recognize and historicize women's contributions to-and political uses of-comedy. The essays collected here demonstrate the breadth of current scholarship on gender and comedy, spanning centuries of literature and a diversity of methodologies.Through a reconsideration of literary, theatrical, and mass media texts from the Classical period to the present, Women and Comedy: History, Theory, Practice responds to the historical marginalization and/or trivialization of both women and comedy. The essays collected in this volume assert the importance of recognizing the role of women and comedy in order to understand these texts, their historical contexts, and their possibilities and limits as models for social engagement. In the spirit of comedy itself, these analyses allow for opportunities to challenge and reevaluate the theoretical approaches themselves.

ContentsAcknowledgmentsList of IllustrationsPreface000Regina BarrecaIntroduction: Dorothy Parker's HeadachePeter Dickinson, Anne Higgins, Paul Matthew St. Pierre, Diana Solomon, SeanZwagermanPart I: Histories, Politics and FormsLaughing AphroditeLaurie O'HigginsComedy in Ancient Greece and Rome: What Was Funny, Whose Humor Was Itand How Do We Explain the Jokes without Killing Them?Barbara GoldMary and Her SistersAnne HigginsFeminist Humor without Women: The Challenge of Reading (in) the Middle AgesLisa PerfettiLaugh, or Forever Hold Your Peace: Comic Crowd Controlin Margaret Cavendish's Dramatic Prologues and EpiloguesDiana SolomonDomestic Manners of the Americans: A Transatlantic PhenomenonLinda MorrisPart II: Approaches, Texts and AudiencesThe Business of British BurlesqueJacky BrattonThe Comic Bodies and Obscene Voices of BurlesqueJoanna MansbridgeElsie and Doris Waters: Four SongsPaul Matthew St. Pierre"I'm Daphne": On the Comedy of Cross-Dressing and Metamorphosisin Wilder's Some Like it Hot, Lubitsch's I Don't Want to be a Manand Ovid's MetamorphosesKay YoungBiting the Hand that Feeds Her: Patronage and Comedyin Nineteenth-Century TheatreGilli Bush-BaileyOut of the Box: Comedy in Disability Theater by Canadian WomenKirsty JohnstonPart III: Topics, Theories and PracticesHumoring the Female Pol: Irony, Consciousness-Raisingand "Third-Culture" DiscourseTarez Samra GrabanAn American Treasure: The Wit and Wisdom of Ann CoulterA Cautionary Tale: Ann Coulter and the Failure of HumorSean ZwagermanLesbian Stand-Up Comics and the Politics of LaughterJoanne GilbertLayla Siddiqui as Holy Fool in Little Mosque on the PrairieShannon HengenPostmodernity and the Gendered Uses of Political SatireLisa CollettaCoda: Try This at HomePeter DickinsonBibliographyContributorsIndex