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LAUGHING FIT TO KILL: BLACK HUMOR IN THE FICTIONS OF SLAVERY. By Glenda R. Carpio. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008; pp. 304. $74.00 cloth, $19.95 paper.
Glenda Carpio's accomplished first book, which offers an interdisciplinary analysis of historical literature, recent performances, satirical novels, and biting visual wit, expands the meager bookshelf of African American humor studies. Rather than trying to cover the many facets and variations of the entirety of African American humor, Carpio wisely concentrates on the connections between slavery and black humor. Mel Watkins and Daryl Dickson- Carr have already explored such topics, but this book offers new ways to consider black humor. As Carpio notes, her book does not "provide a historical account" (as Watkins's collections do), but rather investigates "the relationship between violence and humor" complicating the "distinctions between polite and popular representations of slavery" (28). For Carpio, slavery "becomes such a subject only in the most piercing tragicomedy, one in which laughter is disassociated from gaiety and is, instead, a form of mourning" (7). She also considers how humor responds to manifestations of racism, whether as in the old adage "got to laugh to keep from crying" or in the deep African American tradition of signifyin'. Carpio argues that humor does not simply reflect the tragedy of slavery, but also traces the intricacies of racial discord. She tracks the relationship between stereotypes and humor and considers how the use of stereotypes to critique situations or social injustices can actually liberate the contested stereotype and not merely support its continuity.
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