African American Humor, Irony and Satire

Ishmael Reed, Satirically Speaking

Edited By: Dana A. Williams

£29.99

Essays on Ishmael Reed, George Schuyler, Dave Chappelle, and more reveal how humor, irony, and satire highlight the complexity of African American life and its connections to world cultures.

African American Humor, Irony, and Satire: Ishmael Reed, Satirically Speaking includes select proceedings from the annual Heart’s Day Conference, sponsored by the Department of English…

African American Humor, Irony, and Satire: Ishmael Reed, Satirically Speaking includes select proceedings from the annual Heart’s Day Conference, sponsored by the Department of English at Howard University. Among the collection’s many strengths is the range of essays included here. Essays on Ishmael Reed center the collection, and satirists from George Schuyler to Aaron McGruder are examined as are popular culture comedians Richard Pryor and Dave Chappelle. Thus, the collection adds broadly to the body of scholarship on traditional and non-traditional interpretations of humor, irony, and satire.

What these essays also reveal is how the lens of humor, irony, and satire as a way of reading texts is especially useful in highlighting the complexity of African American life and culture. The essays also uncover crucial but no so obvious connections between African Americans and other world cultures.

Dana A Williams is an Associate Professor of African American Literature in the Department of English at Howard University. She writes broadly on contemporary African American literature and more specifically on contemporary African American fiction. Her most recent publications include a co-edited collection, August Wilson and Black Aesthetics (Palgrave 2004) and the first book length study on novelist Leon Forrest, “In the Light of Likeness—Transformed”: The Literary Art of Leon Forrest (Ohio State UP, 2005).