Working to Laugh

James M. Thomas is assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Mississippi.

In a field saturated with hermeneutical accounts of why stand-up comics do as they do, how their discourse functions, and the political efficacy of their work, James M. Thomas’s Working to Laugh is a welcome re-training of the scholarly lens.... Thomas’s text...is well-written and describes his sociological study, methods, and results vividly. His forceful but tempered attention to social inequalities, which I suspect stems from his academic background in race and women’s studies, is an ever-present companion in this book’s scrutiny of American comedy. But it is his serious theoretical investment and interest in affect and assemblage theory that really makes this book unique.... Working to Laugh is an important contribution to American humor studies. Thomas’s sociological and ethnographic accounts model a solid academic reading of nightlife comedy that combines theory and practice in an approachable and principled way, providing a lucid and accessible demon-stration to scholars investigating American humor, Western capitalism and culture, and race and gender studies.

• Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsChapter 1: IntroductionChapter 2: Into the Field: The Comedy Kitchen and Helter SkelterChapter 3: Affective Labor and The Comedy KitchenChapter 4: Affective Labor and Helter SkelterChapter 5: Assembling Order in Stand-Up ComedyChapter 6: Stand-Up Comedy, Urban Nightlife, and Affective-Cultural AssemblagesChapter 7: Coda – SoleilChapter 8: ConclusionAppendix A: Methodology Bibliography