Lexington Books
Pages: 344
•
Trim: 6½ x 9
978-1-4985-6984-2 • Hardback • December 2018 • $142.00 • (£109.00)
978-1-4985-6985-9 • eBook • December 2018 • $134.50 • (£104.00)
Julie Webber is professor of politics and government at Illinois State University.
Chapter One: All They Need is Lulz: Racist trolls, unlaughter, and Leslie Jones
Viveca Greene
Chapter Two: Brexit Irony, Caricature and Neoliberalism
Simon Weaver
Chapter Three: What’s Wrong with Slactivism? Confronting the Neoliberal Assault on Millennials
Sophia A. McClennen
Chapter Four: Political Humour in the face of Neoliberal Authoritarianism in “New” Turkey
Secil Dagtas
Chapter Five: A Silly Citizenship Take on Infotainment Satire: The Medium of Televisual Political Satire as Ludic Surveillance
David Grondin and Marc-Olivier Castagner
Chapter Six: The Political Economy of Comedy in Late-Night Shows
Don J. Waisanen,
Chapter Seven: British Comedy and the Politics of Resistance: The Liminality of Right Wing Comedy
James Brassett
Chapter Eight: I Want to Party with You, Cowboy: Stephen Colbert and the Aesthetic Logic of “Truthiness” After Campaign 2016
Aaron McKain and Thomas Lawson
Chapter Nine: From Awkward To Dope: Black Women Comics in the Alternative Comedy Scene
Jessyka Finley
Chapter Ten: Savage New Media: Discursive Campaigns For/Against Political Correctness
Rebecca Krefting
Chapter Eleven: “An Actual Nightmare- but Pretty Good TV”: Comedy/Horror in The Trump Era
Diane Rubenstein
Conclusion: You’re Fired!
Julie Webber
Don’t pick up The Joke is on Us: Political Comedy in (Late) Neoliberal Times edited by Julie Webber if what you’re looking for is a funny-haha book. The contributors are not stand-up comedians, nor are they trying to tell jokes. If, instead, you’re looking for serious examinations about how satire, irony, and humor—often weapons of the weak deployed against authoritarians--have been coopted and diffused by neoliberal forces and regimes (corporate capitalism, big data surveillance systems, alt-right conspirators, and racist truthers), then this is the book for you. Don’t expect Saturday Night Live or the Comedy Channel to save us, they warn.
— John Seery, George Irving Thompson Memorial Professor of Government and Professor of Politics
Who gets the last laugh on the late-stage of neoliberalism? As this timely collection suggests, the joke is ultimately on all of us on the losing side of a corporate run humor-mill that keeps us laughing-mad across the political aisles. Amidst the toxic tides of austerity, white nationalism, xenophobia, and rampant misogyny, we’ve been conditioned to look to late-night, white, and (mostly) male corporate-jesters to reassure us that Trump and his troll army will be impeached any day now. Comedy won’t save us from this nightmare, as political and economic elites are the ones laughing… all the way to the bank.
— Raúl Pérez, University of Denver