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Make 'em Laugh!: American Humorists of the 20th and 21st Centuries
by Zeke JarvisThis lighthearted and eye-opening book explores the role of comedy in cultural and political critiques of American society from the past century.This unprecedented look at the history of satire in America showcases the means by which our society is informed by humor—from the way we examine the news, to how we communicate with each other, to what we seek out for entertainment. From biographical information to critical reception of material and personalities, the book features humorists from both literary and popular culture settings spanning the past 100 years.Through its 180 entries, this comprehensive volume covers a range of artists—individuals such as Joan Rivers, Hunter S. Thompson, and Chris Rock—and topics, including vaudeville, cartoons, and live performances. The content is organized by media and genre to showcase connections between writers and performers. Chapters include an alphabetical listing of humorists grouped by television and film stars, stand-up and performance comics, literary humorists, and humorists in popular print.
Comics through Time [4 volumes]: A History of Icons, Idols, and Ideas [4 volumes]
by M. Keith BookerFocusing especially on American comic books and graphic novels from the 1930s to the present, this massive four-volume work provides a colorful yet authoritative source on the entire history of the comics medium.Comics and graphic novels have recently become big business, serving as the inspiration for blockbuster Hollywood movies such as the Iron Man series of films and the hit television drama The Walking Dead. But comics have been popular throughout the 20th century despite the significant effects of the restrictions of the Comics Code in place from the 1950s through 1970s, which prohibited the depiction of zombies and use of the word "horror," among many other rules. Comics through Time: A History of Icons, Idols, and Ideas provides students and general readers a one-stop resource for researching topics, genres, works, and artists of comic books, comic strips, and graphic novels. The comprehensive and broad coverage of this set is organized chronologically by volume. Volume 1 covers 1960 and earlier; Volume 2 covers 1960–1980; Volume 3 covers 1980–1995; and Volume 4 covers 1995 to the present. The chronological divisions give readers a sense of the evolution of comics within the larger contexts of American culture and history. The alphabetically arranged entries in each volume address topics such as comics publishing, characters, imprints, genres, themes, titles, artists, writers, and more. While special attention is paid to American comics, the entries also include coverage of British, Japanese, and European comics that have influenced illustrated storytelling of the United States or are of special interest to American readers.
Xiangsheng and the Emergence of Guo Degang in Contemporary China
by Shenshen Cai Emily DunnThis book explores xiangsheng, one of the most popular folk art performance genres in China, its enlistment by official propaganda machine after the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and its revival in popularity under Guo Degang and his Deyun Club. Just as the 1950's saw the shift of xiangsheng 's social function from entertainment to the political tool of ‘serving the party’, Guo Degang has completed the paradigm shift by turning its focus back to ‘serving the people’ as a means of entertainment and social criticism. This volume examines how Guo has resurrected the essence of xiangsheng, successfully commercialised it in a market economy, and simultaneously deconstructed the official discourse through grassroots means.
Score!
by Aarti V RamanBrighabujamba 'Bee' Vishwanathan hates her name, her current job at Krikket-365 and cricket itself. To keep her job, Bee has to score an exclusive with a member of the Indian team before the T20 World Cup final. When she falls on to the hotel balcony of broody assistant coach Arhan Kapoor while trying to spy on the team, Bee does not think her life could get worse.Arhan loves cricket with a passion that is only rivalled by his hatred of journalists. After the team is affected by the untimely death of their vice-captain, he has only two mandates: motivate the players to a win and keep them away from the media. A nosy reporter managing to full toss her way into the team is his worst nightmare.However, when the team's physiotherapist turns up dead and someone makes an attempt on Bee's life, she and Arhan have to join forces to investigate those out to sabotage India's chances at the Cup. Can two people on opposite sides of a pitch trust each other and bring down a cold-blooded killer? Or will the match end before the last ball is bowled?
Voice of the Runes: Intrigue, Conspiracy, Murder
by Manjiri PrabhuLund University of Sweden is celebrating its 350th year and Investigative Journalist Re Parkar has been specially invited to be a part of the grand ceremony in Lund Cathedral. But on the evening before his arrival, Re experiences a psychic 'vision' of an evil presence permeating the hallowed walls of the Cathedral and he knows that something terrible is going to happen in the next 24 hours in the University.When Professor Heinz of the Runology Department drops dead in the middle of his annual lecture, everyone is shocked. With clues written in rune language, Maddy, the professor's assistant who also practices Rune Divination, offers to help Re, as he steps into a maze of intricate Nordic signs and symbols, on a hunt for the truth. Terrifying incidents follow with escalating speed, plunging the University into the depths of fear as Re unearths a startling truth.Lives are at stake and Re has 48 hours…Would he be able to decipher the clues in time? Who was the mastermind behind the murders and kidnapping? And finally, would Re be able to protect the 350 year-old Lund University?Only the ancient runestones can tell…And only the magical runes can divine the future…
Austenistan
by Laaleen SukheraHeiress Kamila Mughal is humiliated when her brother's best friend snubs her to marry a social climbing nobody from Islamabad. Roya discovers her fiancé has been cheating on her and ends up on a blind date on her wedding day. Beautiful young widow Begum Saira Qadir has mourned her husband, but is she finally ready to start following her own desires? Inspired by Jane Austen and set in contemporary Pakistan, Austenistan is a collection of seven stories; romantic, uplifting, witty, and heartbreaking by turn, which pay homage to the world's favourite author in their own uniquely local way.
That Thing We Call a Heart
by Sheba KarimShabnam Qureshi is a funny, imaginative Pakistani-American teen attending a tony private school in suburban New Jersey. When her feisty best friend, Farah, starts wearing the headscarf without even consulting her, it begins to unravel their friendship. After hooking up with the most racist boy in school and telling a huge lie about a tragedy that happened to her family during the Partition of India in 1947, Shabnam is ready for high school to end. She faces a summer of boredom and regret, but she has a plan: Get through the summer. Get to college. Don't look back. Begin anew.Everything changes when she meets Jamie, who scores her a job at his aunt's pie shack, and meets her there every afternoon. Shabnam begins to see Jamie and herself like the rose and the nightingale of classic Urdu poetry, which, according to her father, is the ultimate language of desire. Jamie finds Shabnam fascinating-her curls, her culture, her awkwardness. Shabnam finds herself falling in love, but Farah finds Jamie worrying. With Farah's help, Shabnam uncovers the truth about Jamie, about herself, and what really happened during Partition. As she rebuilds her friendship with Farah and grows closer to her parents, Shabnam learns powerful lessons about the importance of love, in all of its forms.Featuring complex, Muslim-American characters who defy conventional stereotypes and set against a backdrop of Radiohead's music and the evocative metaphors of Urdu poetry, THAT THING WE CALL A HEART is an honest, moving story of a young woman's explorations of first love, sexuality, desire, self-worth, her relationship with her parents, the value of friendship, and what it means to be true.
Maidless in Mumbai
by Payal KapadiaI am on top of things. I have a seriously stuck baby inside me, and a queue of people between my legs. But I am on top of things.Career-driven reporter Anu Narain has a plan for everything till motherhood comes along. The baby poops/cries/pisses/ feeds round the clock. Anu loses her mind/ the plot/ the maid. And cabin fever strikes when her mother-in-law and her mother come over to help …How does Anu become a working mom when her husband is happy playing the shirking dad? And when her house is a railway station where every maid is a passing train? Will Anu use wile and guile to make the maids stay and The Moms leave? Or will she succumb to that strange Indian malaise called maidomania?Hysterically funny, unapologetically honest, and charming all the way, this is the diary of a maidless Mumbai mom who dreams of only one thing-the perfect maid to live happily forever with.
Manohar Kahani
by Raghu Srinivasan"Life is perfectly peaceful for the Mehtas. Kalyani Mehta's homestay by the sea is a little garden of Eden where she, her retired occultist husband and feckless, unemployed son live happy, dysfunctional lives.Enter snake. Bobby Chander, a billionaire NRI, makes a bid for the property. Kalyani rebuffs his offer, but the sleazy real estate tycoon, refusing to back down, starts making life miserable for Kalyani. With her back to the wall, she reluctantly reaches out to her younger sister, who happens to be incarcerated, for help. Maya is a genie best left in the bottle. Her elaborate con attracts a host of devious characters, pursuing nefarious agendas of their own... Manohar Kahani is a goofy misadventure with a heap of chaos and a pinch of crazy. "
The Way We Were: A hilarious and swoon-worthy second-chance, workplace romance
by Prajwal Hegde"Bitter rivals.Reluctant colleagues. Tormented ex-lovers. Myra Rai is living her best life. At twenty-eight, she is a prominent journalist at the precipice of dreamy success and her dating life is the envy of the town. After all, jealous heads stir to probe her almost engagement to Ravi Rao, the gentleman heir to a roaring political legacy! Myra is well on her course. Until comes knocking the broad-shouldered, chiselled-face ghost from her past... Andrew Brown is a headstrong political activist, unexpectedly back in the city after a winning stint in the US. Set to take over as the executive editor of Morning Herald, he is determined to revisit his past and reconnect with that one feisty journalist at work who hates his guts, hates that he is back, and hates that he never called... Both Myra and Andrew have lost a lot over the years, including each other. But in the fierce race to best one another while pretending not to seethe in the hellfire of jealousy and suppressed passion, can they keep their barbs (and hands) to themselves? Right from the centre of a smouldering passion-fest, Prajwal Hegde tugs compellingly at the heartstrings and delivers a stormy rom-com that is all love (AND a whole lot of lust)! "
The Crow Chronicles
by Ranjit LalThe corrupt, though democratically elected avian government of the Keoladeo NationalPark, Bharatpur is forcibly taken over by a monstrous white crow from Bombay and hiscrack force of commando 'crownies', by means of treachery, deceit and violence. A steel-taloneddictatorship is imposed on the park and all fundamental rights annulled. Butthis desperate hour produces unlikely heroes. There is Achaanak the shikra for one,Titiri, editor of Did He Do It?, Phutki the tailorbird and a host of other citizens, evenGhughuji, the great horned owl who is so given to preaching. Meanwhile, the evilleaders of the erstwhile government, notably Chakumar Billa the tomcat and Budhboothe bandicoot, plot their own return to power. What ensues is a bitter battle forsupremacy.
Kill the Lawyers
by Shishir VayttadenSet around the guns for hire at a fictional Bombay law firm, Kill the Lawyers renders a hilarious account of Big Law-the industry term for large, full-service corporate law firms. It debuts Edamarra Edwin, an irreverent junior partner who frolics with the law while helping friends and clients through their direst straits. In nine droll stories, Edwin wiles out victory from the most hopeless situations with a little help from his spunky young associate and an old Bombay 'operator'. In their wandering timeline these stories chart the arc of Edwin's astonishing rise in life. Shishir Vayttaden's long experience as a corporate lawyer gives authenticity to this work of pure fiction, and his skill as a storyteller makes it both deeply engaging and immensely amusing.
Total Siyapaa
by Neha Sharma"Sum of Two Wholes TOTAL SIYAPAA" Aasha Singh, fiery and confident, can't wait to get her hands dirty with hard news, and uncover scandals and controversies. A Punjabi desi in London, from India. Aman Ali, smart-aleck and suave, a promising musician, has left the security of a career in finance to follow his passion in music.
Stark Raving Ad: A Giddy Guide to Indian Ads You Love (or Hate)
by Ritu SinghPresenting, for the first time ever, the whole truth about Indian advertising and nothing but the truth (with just a pinch of salt). For centuries, Indians have been asking all kinds of questions – about the meaning of life, our place in the cosmos, why we have so many gods, and other such vital things. In the last hundred-odd years, marketing and advertising has given us none of those answers. What it has given us, nonetheless, is life-altering stuff. It has attempted to make men Fair and Handsome. It has battled to make women 18 Again. And to both men and women it has given Tinder loving care. It has made us realize that we like pizza as much as the next Italian – as long as Dominos puts keema dopyaaza on it and tempts us with, ‘Hungry kya?’ It has made us re-evaluate our life choices and ask thought-provoking questions like ‘Kitna deti hai?’ of our cars and ‘Kya aap Close-Up karte hain?’ of our countrymen. In short, it has enriched our lives with quirky quips, unforgettable characters, inter-brand scuffles, clever insights, virtual lures and jaw-dropping controversies. In Stark Raving Ad, you’ll find unbusiness-like stories from Indian advertising through the ages – the hits, the misses, the also-rans and the banned. This is the non-classic book about advertising in India that no one asked for.'
Bala Takes the Plunge
by Melvin DuraiBala dreams of making Tamil films and directing his favourite actor Rajnikanth – a dream that leads him naturally to study engineering in college. This earns him his father's approval and the opportunity to export himself to America. As Director of Design at Flexit Inc., thinking up new ways to help Americans shed the excess weight around their middles and in their wallets, he is at least some kind of director. Bala loves America, and America it seems loves him even more. He has everything he needs to be happy: a green card, a satellite dish to watch cricket and a companion to share his home – albeit one with a very limited vocabulary. But he is now less than a year away from the big 30, and if he doesn't act fast he might have to settle for whichever bride his Amma chooses. So begins Bala's quest for romance as he meets both American and Indian women some who are too old, others too young, and yet others just too stuck up. Will he ever find someone just right for him – and good enough to inherit his mother's Corelle dishes?
Rear Entrance
by David Barun ThomasSix months in dreary and cold Brussels – and no headway with her handsome colleague Luc – has convinced systems analyst Seetha, brought up in ‘steamy’ Madras, that she must move on. The British Government’s immigration laws allow writers and artists to be granted a visa even if they have no job, so Seetha decides that she is a writer – and her first creative assignment is her visa application form. Harish, escaping the slums of India, has slogged hard in Belgium for the last fourteen years, and finally has saved enough to fulfil a lifelong dream: watch a cricket match at Lords in London. Amit seems to have everything – except his strict father’s approval, which he may win if he finds a way to launder the $2 million his father moved out of India ‘during the restrictive years of Nehruvian socialism’. To Ratnesh, who hates the Indian caste system, and as a Dalit, plans to seek asylum in the UK, all’s fair in love, war, and getting a visa. Even using the naïve Harish for his own ends. And across the desk from them all, holding their fate in his hands, is British visa officer Doug Evans… who himself does not know what is going to happen at the end of the two days in which these characters lives, dreams – and visa applications – cross paths.
The Goat, the Sofa & Mr Swami
by R ChandrashekharA politically weighted cricket match between Pakistan and India provides the setting for the hilarious farce, set in a delightful ‘Yes Minister’ format. The Pakistani Premier's sudden decision to invite himself to a cricket series to be played in India creates uncertainly, panic and bureaucratic gamesmanship in New Delhi. Seemingly above such mundane concerns, India's elderly Prime Minister, devoted to movies, scotch, and late mornings, adds to the confusion with random utterances and occasional temper tantrums. His official factotum, a bureaucrat named Swami, plays the confusion for all it is worth, attempting to advance his career and settle old scores. Old rivalries between the Foreign Service and the domestic bureaucrats flare up as the day of the Pakistani Premier's visit approaches. Matters get stalled as rival departments choose to hide behind arcane laws. Conscious of his place in history and of the damage a botched visit would cause, the Prime Minister stages his own protests. Swami is forced to chart a treacherous course between his political and bureaucratic masters. A parable rooted in the absurdities of modern India, this novel takes a light-hearted dig at the pretensions of people who matter.
Beasts of England
by Adam BilesFunny, clever, timely' RACHEL CUSK'A sly, topical updating of Orwell for the twenty-first century' HARI KUNZRUManor Farm has reinvented itself as the South of England’s premium petting zoo. Now, instead of a working farm, humans and beasts alike are invited (for a small fee) to come and stroke, fondle, and take rides on the farm’s inhabitants.But life is not a bed of roses for the animals, in spite of what their leaders may want them to believe. Elections are rigged, the community is beset by factions, and sacred mottos are being constantly updated. The Farm is descending into chaos. What’s more, a mysterious ‘illness’ has started ripping through the animals, killing them one by one …In Beasts of England, Adam Biles honours, updates and subverts George Orwell’s classic, all the while channelling the chaotic, fragmentary nature of populist politics in the Internet age into a savage farmyard satire.
New Indian Nuttahs: Comedy and Cultural Critique in Millennial India (Palgrave Studies in Comedy)
by Kavyta KayThis book takes a journey into the new and exciting created by a the wave of Indian comedians today, described affectionately here as the New Indian Nuttahs, and looks at what these tell us about identity, “Indianness”, censorship, feminism, diaspora and millennial India. It provides a unique analysis into the growing phenomenon of internet comedy and into a dimension of Indian popular culture which has long been dominated by the traditional film and television industries. Through a mixture of close textual readings of online comedy videos and interviews with content creators and consumers in India, this book provides a fresh perspective on comedy studies in its approach to a global South context from a sociocultural perspective. As a protean form of new media, this has opened up new avenues of articulation, identification and disidentification and as such, this book makes a further contribution to South Asian, communication, media & cultural studies.
Inequality in Contemporary Stand-Up Comedy in the UK (Palgrave Studies in Comedy)
by Claire SedgwickThis Pivot explores the cultural economy of comedy in the UK, looking specifically at the links between industry practices and structures and who produces comedy in the UK. The research is based on interviews with comedians in the East Midlands; significantly, this demographic has been historically under-researched in studies of precarity, where the East Midlands is typically overlooked in discussions of arts funding and access in favour of a more simplistic north/south divide narrative. Similarly, whilst there has been increased discussion of the precarity of the creative and cultural industries, as well as media articles on the difficulty of breaking into comedy as a member of a marginalised group, there has been relatively little academic research to support this. While Friedman’s work in particular has been helpful for understanding the link between comedy producers, class and taste making, there has been less attention paid to the sociologies of work within comedy. This book fillsthese gaps in research by exploring the experiences of comedians in the East Midlands, contributing to the rich body of scholarship on inequality in the cultural industries and promoting a better understanding of the impact of structural inequalities and precarity on access to the cultural industries.
The Modern Feminine in the Medusa Satire of Fanny Fern (Palgrave Studies in Nineteenth-Century Writing and Culture)
by James E. CaronThe Modern Feminine in the Medusa Satire of Fanny Fern argues that Sara Parton and her literary alter ego, Fanny Fern, occupy a star-power position within the antebellum literary marketplace dominated by women authors of sentimental fiction, writers Nathaniel Hawthorne (in)famously called “the damn mob of scribbling women.” The Fanny Fern persona represents a nineteenth-century woman voicing the modern feminine within a laughter-provoking bourgeois carnival, a forerunner of Hélène Cixous’s laughing Medusa figure and her theory about écriture féminine. By advancing an innovative theory about an Anglo-American aesthetic, comic belles lettres, Caron explains the comic nuances of Parton’s persona, capable of both an amiable and a caustic satire. The book traces Parton’s burgeoning celebrity, analyzes her satires on cultural expectations of gendered behavior, and provides a close look at her variegated comic style. The book then makes two first-order conclusions: Parton not only offers a unique profile for antebellum women comic writers, but her Fanny Fern persona also anchors a potential genealogy of women comic writers and activists, down to the present day, who could fit Kate Clinton’s concept of fumerism, a feminist style of humor that fumes, that embraces the comic power of a Medusa satire.
The British Sitcom Spinoff Film
by Stephen GlynnThis book constitutes the first full volume dedicated to an academic analysis of theatrically-released spinoff films derived from British radio and television sitcoms. Regularly maligned as the nadir of British film production and marginalised as a last resort for the financially-bereft industry during the 1970s, this study demonstrates that the sitcom spinoff film has instead been a persistent and important presence in British cinema from the 1940s to the present day, and includes (occasional) works with distinct artistic merit. Alongside an investigation of the economic imperative underpinning these productions, i.e. the exploitation of proven product with a ready-made audience, it is argued that, with a longevity stretching from Arthur Askey and his wartime Band Waggon (1940) to the crew of Kurupt FM and their recent People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan (2021), the British sitcom spinoff can be interpreted as following a full generic ‘life cycle’. Starting with the ‘formative’ stage where works from Hi Gang! (1941) to I Only Arsked! (1958) establish the genre’s characteristics, the spinoff genre moves to its ‘classic’ stage where, secure for form and content, it enjoys considerable popular success with films like Till Death Us Do Part (1969), On the Buses (1971), The Likely Lads (1976) and Rising Damp (1980); the genre’s revival since the late-1990s reveals a more ‘parodic’ final stage, with films like The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse (2005) adopting a consciously self-reflective mode. It is also posited that the sitcom spinoff film is a viable source for social history, with the often-stereotypical re-presentations of characters and events an (often blatant) ideological metonym for the concerns of wider British society, notably in issues of class, race, gender and sexuality.
Humour Theory and Stylistic Enquiry
by Taiwo Oloruntoba-OjuThis edited book brings together scholarly chapters on linguistic aspects of humour in literary and non-literary domains and contexts in different parts of the world. Previous scholarly engagements and theoretical postulations on humour and the comic provide veritable resources for reexamining the relationship between linguistic elements and comic sensations on the one hand, and the validity of interpretive humour stylistics on the other hand. Renowned Stylistics scholars, such as Michael Toolan, who writes the volume’s foreword against the backdrop of nearly four decades of scholarly engagement with stylistics, and Katie Wales, who in this volume engages with Charles Dickens, one of the most eminent satirists in English literature, as well as many other European and African authors who have worked ceaselessly in the area of humour and language, weigh in on the topic of language and humour in this volume. Together, they provide a variety of interesting perspectives on the topic, deploying different textual sources from different media and from different regions of the world. Part of the book’s offering includes integrative stylistic approaches to humour in African, European and American written texts, examinations of social media and political humour in Nigeria, Cameroon and Zimbabwe, pragmatics and humorous stance-taking, incongruity as comedy in works of fiction, and a unified levels of linguistic analysis approach to the investigation of humour. This book will be of interest to academics and students of Linguistics, Stylistics, Communications and Media Studies, and Humour Studies. Taiwo Oloruntoba-Oju is a Professor in the Department of English at the University of Ilorin in Nigeria
The Art of Dying: 21st Century Depictions of Death and Dying
by Gareth Richard SchottThe Art of Dying: 21st Century Depictions of Death and Dying examines how contemporary media platforms are used to produce creative accounts, responses and reflections on the course of dying, death and grief. Outside the public performance of grief at funerals, grief can strike in anticipation of a loss, or it can endure, continuing to interject itself and interrupt a permanently changed life. This book examines the particular affordances possessed by various contemporary creative forms and platforms that capture and illuminate different aspects of the phenomenology of dying and grief. It explores the subversive and unguarded nature of stand-up comedy, the temporal and spatial inventiveness of graphic novels, the creative constructions of documentary filmmaking, the narrative voice of young adult literature, the realism of documentary theatre, alongside more ubiquitous media such as social media, television and games. This book is testament to the power of creative expression to elicit vicarious grief and sharpen our awareness of death.
The Palgrave Handbook of Music in Comedy Cinema
by Emilio Audissino Emile WennekesThis handbook tackles the understudied relationship between music and comedy cinema by analysing the nature, perception, and function of music from fresh perspectives. Its approach is not only multidisciplinary, but also interdisciplinary in its close examination of how music and other cinematic devices interact in the creation of comedy. The volume addresses gender representation, national identities, stylistic strategies, and employs inputs from cultural studies, musicology, music theory, psychology, cognitivism, semiotics, formal and stylistic film analysis, and psychoanalysis. It is organised in four sections: general introductions, theoretical investigations, music and comedy within national cinemas, and exemplary case studies of films or authors.