Comedy in the Classroom

This dissertation offers a critical, action implicative discourse analysis of neurodiversity (ND) advocacy online. The neurodiversity movement is a contemporary disability rights movement aimed at autism acceptance grounded in an understanding of autism as natural neurological variation. ND advocacy is a site of discursive struggle where advocates work to redefine autism and combat stigma. This study takes a novel, hybrid discourse analytic approach in an effort to understand why ND advocacy is needed and how its emancipatory potential might be developed. Using a critical discourse analytic lens the author first examines dominant autism discourse in order to better understand how oppressive discursive mechanisms disadvantage autistic individuals in the U.S. Next, ND advocacy practices are reconstructed using action implicative discourse analytic methods to foster normative reflection about what ND advocacy ought to look like. The author finds that, while ND advocacy is making important strides in changing public conversations around autism, the young movement has yet to fully address its own problems of exclusion. The concluding chapter offers some ideas for ways in which advocates might work to include disenfranchised members of the autistic community and more parent advocates.

Studies in American Humor

Bill Cosby's immorality has raised intriguing aesthetic and ethical issues. Should the crimes that he has been convicted of lessen the aesthetic value of his standup and, even if we can enjoy it, should we? I first discuss the intimacy between the comedian and audience. The artform is both structurally intimate and the comedian claims to express an authentic self on stage. After drawing an analogy to the debate over the ethical criticism of art, I argue that it is reasonable to find a comedian's performance less funny because standup's artistic success relies on this intimacy. I contrast the comedy of Bill Cosby with that of Louis CK. CK's moral flaws are much more present in his comedy, and it is therefore more difficult to find him funny. Last, it is ethically permissible to enjoy their comedy, if no harm to others results, both because it does not corrupt the audience's character and because amusement is valuable.

While humor has long been documented as a useful teaching tool, it is almost entirely untheorized in terms of its potential for multicultural education. Specifically, the learning opportunities that racial comedic media offer in multicultural and anti-racist coursework is a particularly under-studied area, while research in this vein has great potential to positively affect pedagogies both within and beyond courses on critical multicultural education. In this article, two instructors, together with their students, examine the use of racial comedy as a teaching tool for multicultural education. The article begins by providing a brief overview of the literature on racial comedy and use of comedy in teaching, followed by a close look at salient characteristics of the teaching and learning environment of the course that allowed this work to emerge. The crux of the article centers on the identification and exploration of four themes, or interpretive tensions, animated by the class’ engagement with racial comedy, and thusly helps illuminate the possibilities and complexities of utilizing racial comedy for multicultural education: (1) insider humor carries questions about who holds permission to initiate racial jokes and who is allowed to laugh at them; (2) perceptions of comedic irresponsibility inspired discussion around delineating between critical race comedy versus overtly racist comedy, and the gray areas in between; (3) educative commentary ensconced within racial comedy, such as that of many Dave Chappelle sketches, revealed our concerns about viewers who, lacking historicity and knowledge of root contexts undergirding the comedy, would likely misinterpret the humorous scenarios and thusly have their own racist stereotypes reinforced; and (4), while parody is humorous because of its inherent ridiculousness, we found that parodic racial comedy may create the opportunity for a slightly uncomfortable self-check, where the viewer can process her or his own actions and responses (assuming that he or she is receptive to such thinking). In highlighting these interpretive tensions, this analysis offers guidance for instructors and facilitators embarking on this journey, and furthermore contributes to our understanding of the possible pedagogical benefits from using racial comedy more broadly.

2012

Proquest, 2018

In 2014, Black feminist scholar bell hooks called for humor to be utilized as political weaponry in the current, post-1990s wave of intersectional activism at the National Women’s Studies Association conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Her call continues to challenge current stand-up comics to acknowledge intersectionality, particularly the perspectives of women of color, and to encourage comics to actively intervene in unsettling the notion that our U.S. culture is “post-gendered” or “post-racial.” This dissertation examines ways in which comics are heeding bell hooks’s call to action, focusing on the work of stand-up artists who forge a bridge between comedy and political activism by performing intersectional perspectives that expand their work beyond the entertainment value of the stage. Though performers of color and white female performers have always been working to subvert the normalcy of white male-dominated, comic space simply by taking the stage, this dissertation focuses on comics who continue to embody and challenge the current wave of intersectional activism by pushing the socially constructed boundaries of race, gender, sexuality, class, and able-bodiedness. Utilizing performance analysis, gender theory, queer theory, critical race theory, and humor studies, this dissertation unpacks the ways that stand-up performers engage the comedic stage as their own form of public intellectualism and social critique in the #BlackLivesMatter era. This dissertation is driven by a central question: what performative strategies – defined throughout as ways in which comics structure the content, delivery, and space of their performances in specific ways that convey meaning – do stand-up comedians use to invite audiences to see them as intersectional subjects that live in the wholeness of their identities? Throughout the dissertation, I examine how comedians are using specific tactics of performance that reflect a fullness of identity as intersections of race, gender, class, sexuality, and (dis)ability. The first chapter examines the work of specific performers to demonstrate ways in which stand-up comedians blend public intellectual work with social activism through their comedy to convey intersectional standpoints in the 21st century. The second chapter explores the work of Black female American stand-up comedians as a challenge to the ways in which the normative whiteness of fourth wave feminism fails to acknowledge the labor of women of color, despite its purported ethos to do so. Chapter three considers the work of performers examining gender, sexuality, and (dis)ability from a white positionality and critiques such work in terms of ways it does or does not engage with race and whiteness as a core component of intersectionality. The final chapter ponders how the use of humor, as a tool of intersectional activism, loses or gains efficacy when performed from transnational perspectives. Ultimately, this dissertation argues that 21st century stand-up answers hooks’s call, serving as a site to address and perform social justice activism by using humor as the connective tissue between these spaces of social discourse, comedy, and traditional street protest.

INTED2016 Proceedings, 2016

2013

Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2015

College students with autism may be negatively impacted by lack of understanding about autism on college campuses. Thus, we developed an online training to improve knowledge and decrease stigma associated with autism among college students. Participants (N = 365) completed a pre-test, online training, and post-test. Women reported lower stigma towards autism than men. Participation in the training was associated with decreased stigma and increased knowledge about autism. Although participants exhibited relatively high baseline knowledge of autism, misconceptions were common, particularly in open-ended responses. Participants commonly confused autism with other disorders, such as learning disabilities. This study suggests that online training may be a cost-effective way to increase college students' understanding and acceptance of their peers with autism.

Dysfunctional Comedy - A Reader, Sternberg Press, Berlin, 2016 A series of essays, conversations and numerous performative works, invested in comedy, humor and art. Published by Livia Paldi and Olav Westphalen, funded through and artistic research grant from the Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm and Baltic Arts Center, Visby. With Essays by Livia Paldi, Olav Westphalen, Roee Rosen, Aron Flam, Sally O'Reilly.

One of the challenges of educating adolescents with autism spectrum disorders is to find activities that are interesting and engaging. Researchers have shown that adolescents with autism often are attracted to technology. Using a qualitative research method, the lived experiences of three students with autism who participated in after school robotics clubs were analyzed. Common themes to emerge were the students enjoyed meeting new friends, learning about the technology, and participating in robotics competitions.