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April 2015
New Series, 24:1
Notes and NewsAmerican Humor Studies Association
Mark Twain Circle of AmericaQuadrennial Conference 2014
December 4-7, 2014Four Points Sheraton French Quarter
A report from Executive Director Jan McIntire-Strasburg:The Quadrennial American Humor Studies/ Mark Twain Circle of America conference in New Orleans last December went off without a hitch with highly interesting papers on just about every aspect of humor in America represented. Sessions of particular interest covered the Coen Brother’s on form and adaptation, Twain and the Language of Power, and Charlie Chaplin (The Tramp at 100). But to single these out is only to say that they stood out within three days of highly original and informative talks. Sessions ran the gamut from gender and race to media, form and craft, film and stand-up comedy. This year’s conference was our second in New Orleans, and the ambiance and night life were everything we could have wished. The Sheraton Four Points set the conference up well, with delicious continental breakfasts every morning and the hotel rooms were clean and comfortable with views onto Bourbon Street. Restaurants within walking distance were excellent, the music was great, and the people-watching was highly entertaining. For those members who couldn’t make the conference—you missed some excellent scholarship, and should consider sending work to the next one in 2018. If negotiations go well, we hope to sponsor that one in Austin at a new American Humor Center courtesy of hard work by Tracy Wuster. Please consider joining us for the next one!
AHSA welcomes Lisa Stein Haven ([email protected]) as our new Membership Coordinator. If you've let your dues slip, you probably already have received a notice from Lisa reminding you of all the good things that come with a membership to AHSA. With the help of this new officer, we hope to keep our records up
to date so no one misses out on an important CFP or edition of Studies in American Humor or To Wit. Speaking of our journal, it has been transferred to a new publisher and now appears in the JSTOR database. If you are interested in reviewing books for Studies in American Humor or if you have a book you would like us to consider for review, please contact Tracy Wuster at: [email protected]
Announcing:THE 2nd JACK ROSENBALM PRIZE FOR SCHOLARSHIP IN
AMERICAN HUMORAwarded to the best article on American humor by a pre-tenure scholar, graduate student, adjunct professor, or independent scholar published in (or accepted for publication in) a peer-reviewed academic journal or book. Articles published in 2014 and 2015 are eligible for the next award.
Articles will be judged by blind peer review by a committee of three scholars appointed by the AHSA Board. Applicants do not need to be members of the AHSA to submit. For details about the prize and entry information, please visit americanhumor.org
American Literature Association 26th Annual Conference Boston, MA. May 21-24 2015
Session from the American Humor Studies Association
Session 3-D Ethnicity, Humor, and the Nation Chair: Judith Yaross Lee, Ohio University
“American National Identity, Eugenic Nordicism and George S. Schuyler’s Laughter in Black No More (1931),” Ewa Luczak, University of Warsaw
"‘All Welfare Stories Are Not Grim’: Charles Wright’s Black Humor & the US Welfare State,” Irvin J. Hunt, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
"The Power of Humor: Re-imagining the American Citizen Through the Performances of Richard Pryor,” Melanie Brandt, University of Colorado Denver “
Session 7-F Print Cultures within the Nation Chair: James Caron, University of Hawaii“‘[C]haracteristic of the American Mind’: 19th Century Humor, Satire, and National Identity,” Todd Nathan Thompson, Indiana University of Pennsylvania“‘The Honest, Home-Write Page’: The Search for the Early American Comic Strip,” Alex J. Beringer, University of Montevallo “Forming Community through Print: Bill Nye in the Pittsburg Dispatch,” Brianne Jaquette, University of Missouri
Session 13-B Charles Chesnutt and HumorCo-Sponsored by the Charles Chesnutt Society and AHSAChair: Viktor Osinubi, Clark Atlanta University“ ‘Is That Story True?’: Charles W. Chesnutt, Uncle Julius, and American Innocence,” M.M. Dawley, Boston University“Historical Forgetting and the Problem of Humor in ‘Po' Sandy,’ “Kristina Deonaldo, University of Kentucky“Re-Framing Criminal Humor: Blackface Minstrelsy and Murder in Twain's Pudd'n'head Wilson and Chesnutt's Marrow of Tradition,” Sharon McCoy, University of Georgia
Session offered by the Mark Twain Circle:Session 4-C Mark Twain and Disability Chair: John Bird, Winthrop University“ ‘Simply a Hymn’: Grief and the Origins of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” Joseph Csicsila, Eastern Michigan University“Mark Twain and Disability: Conjoined Twins,” Jules Austin Hojnowski, Cornell University“Mark Twain: Blind to the Disabled?” Joseph A. Alvarez, Independent Scholar
Session 12-D Returning to the Scene of the “Crime”: Mark Twain’s “Whittier Birthday Speech” Re-enacted and Reconsidered Chair: Bruce Michelson, University of Illinois-Urbana
Rather than a session of papers, this session will involve a re-enactment of Twain’s notorious Whittier Birthday Speech, delivered at Boston’s Hotel Brunswick in 1877, with a reading of the speech, readings of newspaper accounts, readings from letters between William Dean Howells and Twain, and readings of reminiscences by both Howells and Twain. A discussion will follow.
The Mark Twain Players: John Bird, Winthrop UniversityDavid Carkeet, Independent ScholarKerry Driscoll, University of Saint JosephKathryn Dolan, Missouri University of Science and Technology
Sessions from the Kurt Vonnegut SocietySession 14-H Vonnegut, Race, and Ideology Chair: Gregory Sumner, University of Detroit Mercy“Always-Already Recreating the ‘Same Old Nightmare’: The Function of Ideology in Kurt Vonnegut's Player Piano,” Joshua Privett, Bob Jones University“‘Color Was Everything’: The American Racial Hierarchy in Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions,” Nicole Lowman, Southern Connecticut State University“Shadows Cast by a Magic Lamp: Vonnegut, Race, and Censorship,” Robert T. Tally Jr, Texas State University
Session 18-H Vonnegut and GenreModerator: Robert T. Tally Jr., Texas State University“‘All of This Happened, More or Less’: Dealing with WWII Trauma through Science Fantasy in Slaughterhouse-Five,” Deanna Rodriguez, Texas State University“‘Deadeye Dick and the Aesthetics of Accessibility,” Chuck Augello, Editor, The Daily Vonnegut “The Disciplinary Novel: Vonnegut and Foucauldian Systems of Normalization,” Zachary Perdieu, Texas State University“Faustian Themes in Sirens of Titan,” Brent McNeely, Bob Jones University
Other sessions of interest:Session 5-M African American Satire and the American Literary Tradition Organized by: Christopher A. Shinn, Howard University “It Really is Ironic, Don’t You Think?: Wit, Irony, Satire, and Teaching American Literature,” Darryl Dickson-Carr, Southern Methodist University“Blinded by the White: Black Satire and The Monstrosities of Race in Mat Johnson’s Pym,” Lisa Guerrero, Washington State University“Derrick Bell’s ‘The Space Traders’: African American Satire as Critical Race Theory Narrative,” Christopher A. Shinn, Howard University
Session 11-F Comics and ModernismOrganizers: Ben Novotny Owen and David M. BallChair: Alfred Bendixen, Princeton University"Cartoonists Greet the Future: Comics, the Armory Show, and the Shock of Recognition," Peter R. Sattler, Lakeland College "The Invisibility of Influence: The Poetics of George Herriman¹s Krazy Kat and the Comicity of E.E. Cummings," Ben Novotny Owen, Ohio State University"Beyond Black: Abstraction and Expression in the Comics and Canvases of Ad Reinhardt," David M. Ball, Princeton University
Session 15-A Mark Twain’s Audiences: Reception Histories and Reconstructed Reading CommunitiesOrganized by the Reception Study Society Chair: Philip Goldstein, University of Delaware“Reconstructing the Reading Community of the Century: The Pre-Published Chapters of Huckleberry Finn,” Barbara Hochman, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev“The Political Theology of Reception: From Huck Finn to Francis Finn, S.J.,” Steven Mailloux, Loyola Marymount University“The Reception of The Prince and the Pauper in the Early 1880s,” James L. Machor, Kansas State University
Session 21-H Humor in Contemporary Literature Chair: Steven Frye, California State University, Bakersfield“The Poet John Engman; the Kafka of Minneapolis, the Charlie Chaplin of Hennepin Ave.” A. M. Brandt, Savannah College of Art and Design“Incongruence, Inheritance and Imagination: The Shticks of Fran Ross’ Oreo.” Jalylah Burrell, Yale University“‘My knees are laughing. Is that allowed?’: The Curiosities of Nicholson Baker's Prose.” Mark Richardson, Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan“Nathanael West, Secularism, and the Comic.” Matthew Mutter, Bard College
Page 2 To Wit April 2015 – New Series, 24.1
Other Conference and Organization of Interest:AHSA will be represented at the 2015 International Society for Humor Studies Conference at Holy Names University, Oakland, CA June 29-July 3, 2015Revisionary Strategies for the Study of 19th Century American HumorEarly humor scholars Jeannette Tandy, Constance Rourke, and Walter Blair’s seminal texts took a very particular stance on what constituted American Humor. The texts focus almost exclusively on white, male, vernacular humorists from the Southwest and Down East “schools,” with very few exceptions.While these authors did a great deal to bring humor into the serious study of literature, their focus tended to leave out quite a few humor writers from the time period. As a consequence, they give the mistaken impression that “American Humor” was much more unified and homogeneous than it actually was.This presentation considers the humor of the 19th century from a broader perspective, one that includes more women, authors of color, and authors who do not fit the mold of “Crackerbox Philosopher” with an eye toward revising who and what defined American Humor in the 19th Century."It Smacks of the Soil: Racy Humor as Literature and Lucre," Tracy Wuster, University of Texas, Austin“Women in Comic Valentines, from Old Maid to Golfer,” Cameron Nickels, Professor Emeritus, James Madison University“One-Sided Scholarship, or How we (Narrowly) Defined American Humor,” Janice McIntire-Strasburg, Saint Louis University.
CFP: The Northeast Popular/American Culture Association (NEPCA) is seeking papers on the subject of television for its annual fall conference to be held on Friday, October 30 and Saturday, October 31, 2015 on the campus of Colby-Sawyer College in New London, NH. NEPCA prides itself on holding conferences which emphasize sharing ideas in a non-competitive and supportive environment. We welcome proposals from graduate students, junior faculty and senior scholars. NEPCA conferences offer sessions in which new ideas and works-in-progress can be aired, as well as completed projects. NEPCA Fall Conference information, including proposal form and other instructions, can be found at: http://nepca.wordpress.com/fall-conference/.
Proposals should be sent to the 2015 Program Chair Kraig Larkin ([email protected]) and to the television area chair, Kathleen Collins ([email protected]). Please be sure to include the acronym NEPCA in the email subject line. The deadline for proposals is Monday, June 15, 2015.
Pocket Book ReviewsBy Kalman Goldstein
Kapsis, Robert E., editor. Conversations with Steve Martin. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. 2014. 316 pages. ISBN 978-1-62846-125-1; as e-book ISBN 978-1-62846-114-5. Paperback. $25.00.
Over a 50-year career, Steve Martin has developed mastery of what Adam Gopnik calls “the comedy of violated fastidiousness.” Kapsis, Professor of Sociology and Film Studies at City University of New York, examines this through 28 selected articles, or transcripts of interviews, from 1977 through 2012. Arranged chronologically for convenience, more significantly they chart Martin’s episodic artistic reinvention and progression from ‘zany’ to wit, stressing his engagement with broader choices of genre, and awareness of form as well as formula. In his thoughtful Introduction, Kapsis dates and describes nine separate phases of Martin’s career: television scriptwriter, standup, film actor, screen writer, essayist, theater writer, literary analyst, humor-leavened musician, and most recently “tweeter.” Many conversations are laced with sound bites, or excerpts from theatrical productions and Martin's autobiography, Born Standing Up.
Martin has always tried to provide serious, thoughtful and forthcoming responses to interviewers’ questions. The best selections feature substantial explorations of specific projects: such films as Roxanne, Bowfinger, and Shopgirl; Martin’s novel An Object of Beauty; his demanding but laugh-provoking play Picasso at Lapin Agile; and anatomizing his earlier standup as absurdist parodies of comic cliché. Among the most rewarding are Adam Gopnik’s lengthy analysis in The New Yorker, Ben Fong Torres’ essay from Rolling Stone, David Scheff’s 1993 interview for Playboy, and Renee Montagne’s recent broadcast on National Public Radio marking Martin’s debut on Twitter. Most amusing and entertaining are three transcripts of television conversations with Charlie Rose from 1996 through 2010; Rose and Martin joust joyfully while probing the comedian’s psyche as well as his art. Here Martin has the last word on his constant urge to creativity: “Writer’s block is a fancy term made up by whiners so they can have an excuse to drink alcohol.”
Sacks, Mike. Poking A Dead Frog: Conversations with Today’s Top Comedy Writers. New York: Penguin. 2014. 460 pages. ISBN 978-0-14-312378-1. Paperback. $18.00.
This is Mike Sacks fourth book of or about humor, his second collection of conversations with humor writers about their craft. Both the title (a cliché) and subtitle are misleading, for as well as current writers, he has included hallowed veterans, including the normally interview-averse Henry Beard, founder of National Lampoon. As well as 15 substantial conversations, there are two dozen straight-forward advice essays for aspiring writers about the nuts and bolts of the business, even how to seek and impress representative agents. The collection examines many aspects of long- and short-form comedy writing: for radio, late night television, award show joke submissions, Hollywood script doctoring, short stories and novellas, journalism, ’Sit-coms’—and how Twitter has broadened and liberated exposure. The "how to" sections offer “Ultraspecific Comedic Knowledge” and “Pure, Hard-Core Advice” from such successful writers as Amy Poehler. There are descriptions of “submission packets” and “series bibles” for the neophyte.
The interviews are the book’s heart. Sacks asks thoughtful and informed questions, frequently leading his subjects to profound reflections on the business as well as hilarious anecdotes about their own careers. Most striking for are conversations with giants from the past, like still feisty radio writer/performer Peg Lynch, and Bob Elliott of Bob and Ray fame. After the decades on Saturday Night Live, James Downey, “names names”; Adam Reznick describes Chris Elliott and himself creating absurdist performance pieces both for The Letterman Show and their own
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sit-coms; examples of character development enliven Glen Charles’ accounts of working on both Taxi and Cheers. Even the iconic Mel Brooks entertainingly ranges over a half century of writing comedy.
Sacks’ “Frog” is by no means dead.
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Mirth Masters of theAmerican Humor
StudiesAssociation
Executive DirectorJanice McIntire-StrasburgSaint Louis University, St. Louis, [email protected]
President/Web MasterTracy WusterIndependent [email protected]
Vice PresidentJames CaronThe University of Hawai’[email protected]
Secretary – TreasurerJennifer HughesAverett UniversityDanville, VA [email protected]
Editor-Studies in American HumorJudith Yaross LeeOhio UniversityAthens, OH [email protected]
Editor-To WitLaurie Britt-SmithUniversity of Detroit MercyDetroit, MI [email protected]
American Humor Studies AssociationNew and Renewal Membership Application
Membership in the American Humor Studies Association includes the semi-annual newsletter, To Wit, and the annual journal, Studies in American Humor, on an as-issued basis.
To join:Send a $25 check ($30 for international; $10 for student) to:Dr. Jennifer HughesAverett University420 W. MainDanville, VA 24541
Or Join electronically via Americanhumor.org
Enroll / Renew me as a member in the American Humor Studies Association, please.
Name __________________________________________________
Mailing Address __________________________________________
City, State, ZIP Code ______________________________________
Academic Affiliation _______________________________________
Saint Louis UniversityDepartment of English3800 LindellSt. Louis, MO 63108
