Laughing fit to kill : black humor in the fictions of slavery / Glenda R. Carpio

Object Details

Contents: Introduction -- "Laffin' fit ter kill" : black humor in the fiction of William Wells Brown and Charles W. Chesnutt -- The conjurer recoils : slavery in Richard Pryor's performances and Chappelle's Show -- Conjuring the mysteries of slavery : voodoo, fetishism, and stereotype in Ishmael Reed's Flight to Canada -- "A comedy of the grotesque" : Robert Colescott, Kara Walker, and the iconography of slavery -- The tragicomedy of slavery in Suzan-Lori Parks's early plays
Summary: Reassessing the meanings of "black humor" and "dark satire", this book illustrates how black comedians, writers, and artists have deftly deployed various modes of comedic "conjuring"--The absurd, the grotesque, and the strategic expression of racial stereotypes- to redress not only the past injustices of slavery and racism in America but also their legacy in the present.--[book cover].

2008

Physical description: xi, 287 pages, [16] pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 24 cm

Smithsonian Libraries

Topic: American literature--African American authors--History and criticism; African American wit and humor--History and criticism; Black humor; Slavery in literature; Comic, The, in literature; African Americans in literature