Academic Paper from the year 2020 in the subject Cultural Studies - Miscellaneous, grade: 95, , course: Comparative Literature, language: English, abstract: This study seeks to delve into how some Nigerian comedians subtly critique the Nigerian political scene. Hence, the study aims to see how these artistic works have been a tool of youth activism with a special reference to the #EndSars protest. There are obvious shreds of evidence that point to the fact that comedy is a powerful and untapped storytelling genre to raise awareness, incite action to human rights and social justice, change attitudes, especially amongst the youths. Despite this significance, comedy is underexplored.

This book critically examines the role and politics of humour and the performance of power in South Asia. What does humour do and how does it manifest when lived political circumstances experience ruptures or instability? Can humour that emerges in such circumstances be viewed as a specific narrative on the nature of democracy in the region? Drawing upon essays from India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, this volume discusses many crucial historical and contemporary themes, including dance-drama performances in northern India; caste and stand-up comedy in India; cartoon narratives of citizens’ anxieties; civic participation through social media memes in Sri Lanka; media, politics and humorous public in Bangladesh; the politics of performance in India; and the influence of humour and satire as political commentaries. The volume explores the impact of humour in South Asian folklore, ritual performances, media and journalism, and online technologies. This topical and interdisciplinary book will be essential for scholars and researchers of cultural studies, political science, sociology and social anthropology, media and communication studies, theatre and performance studies, and South Asian studies.

Yabbing and Wording: The artistry of Nigerian stand-up comedy is a long-overdue academic interrogation of the novel stand-up practice in Nigeria as performance. 'Yabbing' comes from the Nigerian Pidgin English verb, 'yab', which means a satirical jibe thrown at individuals, groups or institutions. Nigeria's Fela Anikulapo-Kuti used this effectively in his recorded and live music performances against successive military regimes. 'Wording' derives from the English term 'word' and refers to a game in which parties exchange insults. It is a modern-day coinage for traditional forms of joking that existed across Nigeria and elsewhere in precolonial times. In this book, Nwankw? identifies 'yabbing' and 'wording' as outstanding indigenous elements within contemporary stand-up practice in Nigeria. On the one hand, these local joking patterns inform how comedians fashion their narratives. On the other, they mitigate offence and how the audience responds to ridicule in joke performance venues. The book's strength is its academic perspective and the inclusion of as many examples of stand-up and comedians as possible, to give a panoramic view of the practice. It also traces the historical path of the development of professional stand-up comedy in Nigeria. Its closing chapters detail the global outreach of Nigerian stand-up while also anticipating its future developments.

This book was shortlisted for the 2015 BSA Philip Abrams Memorial Prize. Comedy is currently enjoying unprecedented growth within the British culture industries. Defying the recent economic downturn, it has exploded into a booming billion-pound industry both on TV and on the live circuit. Despite this, academia has either ignored comedy or focused solely on analysing comedians or comic texts. This scholarship tends to assume that through analysing an artist’s intentions or techniques, we can somehow understand what is and what isn’t funny. But this poses a fundamental question – funny to whom? How can we definitively discern how audiences react to comedy? Comedy and Distinction shifts the focus to provide the first ever empirical examination of British comedy taste. Drawing on a large-scale survey and in-depth interviews carried out at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the book explores what types of comedy people like (and dislike), what their preferences reveal about their sense of humour, how comedy taste lubricates everyday interaction, and how issues of social class, gender, ethnicity and geographical location interact with patterns of comic taste. Friedman asks: Are some types of comedy valued higher than others in British society? Does more ‘legitimate’ comedy taste act as a tangible resource in social life – a form of cultural capital? What role does humour play in policing class boundaries in contemporary Britain? This book will be of interest to students and scholars of sociology, social class, social theory, cultural studies and comedy studies.

The seventeen essays in this book examine the power of humour in framing social and political protest.

Using engaging stories and a diverse cast of characters, Lisa Wade memorably delivers what C. Wright Mills described as both the terrible and the magnificent lessons of sociology. With chapters that build upon one another, Terrible Magnificent Sociology represents a new kind of introduction to sociology. Recognizing the many statuses students carry, Wade goes beyond race, class, and gender, considering inequalities of all kindsÑand their intersections. She also highlights the remarkable diversity of sociology, not only of its methods and approaches but also of the scholars themselves, emphasizing the contributions of women, immigrants, and people of color. The book ends with an inspiring call to action, urging students to use their sociological imaginations to improve the world in which they live.

This book of essays inspires us to good behavior, one sharp and funny side-eye at a time. Dissects our cultural obsessions and calls out bad behavior in our increasingly digital, connected lives.