Cracking Up: Black Feminist Comedy in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Century United States
Katelyn Hale Wood
University of Iowa Press
Cracking Up archives and analyzes Black feminist stand-up comedy in the United States over the past sixty years, showing how Black feminist comedy and the laughter it ignites are vital components of feminist, queer, and anti-racist protest. Framing stand-up comedy as an important platform from which to examine citizenship in the United States, articulate Black feminist political thought, and subvert structures of power, Wood also champions comedic performance and theatre history as imperative contexts for advancing historical studies of race, gender, and sexuality. From the comedy routines popular on Black vaudeville circuits to stand-up on contemporary social media platforms, Cracking Up excavates an overlooked history of Black women who have made the art of joke-telling a key part of radical performance and political engagement.