Irony in the Age of Empire

Cover

Download PDF (73.3 KB)
 

Contents

Download PDF (27.7 KB)
pp. vii-

Acknowledgments

Download PDF (26.8 KB)
pp. ix-

I wrote this book over the years when my children’s tastes in comedy were changing from Rugrats to The Colbert Report and Hollywood romantic comedies. Much of the research for the book owes to Liza and Joe’s collaboration as well as their endless stream of jokes. ...

Prologue: On Truthiness

Download PDF (76.7 KB)
pp. 1-17

On September 11, 2001, the radical Islamist group Al Qaeda largely succeeded in carrying out a plot to destroy the U.S. World Trade Center towers and embarrass a mighty power. The United States responded with two invasions. ...

One Laughter against Hubris: A Preemptive Strike

Download PDF (92.5 KB)
pp. 18-40

For twelve years, the United States had stood alone and uncontested as the sole world superpower. Then came the terror of September 11, the crumbling World Trade towers, the damaged face of the Pentagon, and thousands dead. The deaths and destruction prompted much speculation on the reasons for anti-American sentiments ...

Two Laughing to Keep from Crying: Cornel West, Pragmatism, and Progressive Comedy

Download PDF (92.4 KB)
pp. 41-62

It isn’t easy synthesizing the work of the master synthesizer, Cornel West. Cornel West’s glimpse into life is as wide and deep as his roots in music and religion. His evangelical message of hope, the syncopated rhythms of unexpected joy against the unyielding absurd, have earned him the title of the blues man of philosophy, ...

Three Authenticity in an Age of Satire: Ellison, Sartre, Bergson, and Spike Lee’s Bamboozled

Download PDF (111.7 KB)
pp. 63-91

Could an age riddled by the ironies of postmodern skepticism find a way of grasping anew the ethics of authenticity? In classic existential terms, authenticity entails recuperating a sense of oneself from the threat of absorption into social roles.¹ After the demise of the 1960s social movements, and the rise of linguistic philosophy, ...

Four Engage the Enemy: Cavell, Comedies of Remarriage, and the Politics of Friendship

Download PDF (93.8 KB)
pp. 92-115

Life, liberty, and, not property per se, but the pursuit of happiness name our fundamental sense of rights in this country. But are we at all clear on what happiness, or at least its pursuit, entails? Certainly we might say that of all the good things that lead to individual happiness, few are as important as friendship. ...

Five Three Concepts of Freedom

Download PDF (154.3 KB)
pp. 116-148

The practices of comedy provide terribly effective tools, strategies, and tactics for reinforcing social patterns of domination and exclusion. Oppressive communities, for example, may generate internal unity by using ridicule to target social outcasts and threaten any member who dares not conform. ...

Notes

Download PDF (90.7 KB)
pp. 149-166

Index

Download PDF (44.7 KB)
pp. 167-171