Contra Theodor Adorno, it is mercifully untrue that the writing of poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric. Nevertheless, modes of artistic expression do rise and fall as history shuffles from one corridor ...

In two recent posts, I touched on both nonverbal and verbal types of formal humor. In this one, I continue our review of the latter category by discussing two styles of humor seen quite regularly in ...

In a National Rifle Association (NRA) TV ad from February of this year a man stands in front of a TV screen that airs a series of clips. Among them is a shot of John Oliver saying the words “National ...

Black American novelists, filmmakers and other writers are using comedy to reveal — and combat — our era’s disturbing political realities. By Adam Bradley LAST SPRING, DURING the Broadway revival of ...

In our digital times as we are inundated with YouTube videos, memes and social media, satire is everywhere, but it can be more damaging to people's reputations than direct criticism, according to new ...

Half-baked thoughts, then, toward an AWP presentation that won’t be: Jokes, the good Dr. Freud said famously, are often “hostile.” (That, or obscene: the jokes of “exposure.”) Aggressiveness, satire, ...

I have often had occasion to bemoan the sad lot of the satirist in contemporary society. Satire depends for its bite on a discrepancy between the satire and reality. The satirist presents an ...