Women's Comic Visions (Humor in Life and Letters Ser.)

Women's Comic Visions celebrates the resurgence of interest and research on contemporary women comic writers and performers and on long-forgotten women humorists that has come about because of the feminist movement.

A collection of noteworthy essays commissioned especially for this volume, the book focuses on the American experience and American women theorists on humor, literary creators of humor, and performers. There is an interdisciplinary perspective to the book, with scholars of literature, psychology, history, and American studies analyzing America's attitudes and values regarding women and humor. Included are examples of long-lost women writers and cartoonists of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as well as contemporary performers such as Moms Mabley, Lucille Ball, Bette Midler, Whoopi Goldberg, and Lily Tomlin. Attention is given to the similarities and differences between black and white women comic practitioners. Finally, the question of a woman's culture with a separate style, perspective, and content regarding humor is addressed, giving rise to comparisons and contrasts between women's and men's humor.

Women's Comic Visions brings together the practical, the abstract, the applied, and the theoretical. The book dispels the conventional wisdom that women, having no sense of humor could neither produce comic material nor laugh at appropriate times.

June Sochen is a professor of history at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago. Among her publications are Cafeteria America: New Identities in Contemporary Life and Enduring Values: Women in Popular Culture. She received her Ph.D. from Northwestern University.