Laughing with an Iranian American Woman: Firoozeh Dumas's Memoirs and the (Cross-) Cultural Work of Humor

This essay critically analyzes Firoozeh Dumas's humorous memoirs and situates them in the multiple contexts of post-9/11 Muslim American responses to Islamophobia, women's humor, and Iranian American women's life writing. Drawing on philosophical, feminist, ethnic, and contemporary scientific theories of humor and the methods of literary criticism, the author argues that Dumas employs the beneficial and inclusive (not malign and exclusive) positive mode of humorous personal storytelling to build connection through laughter via the emotional and cognitive shifts structurally central to humor. Dumas addresses multiple audiences and engages in important (cross-) cultural work in a particularly fraught political and cultural climate of anti-Muslim sentiment and tense Iran-U.S. relations.