Laughing Matters
Sophia McClennen, author of Trump Was a Joke, discusses how political satire decoded the chaos of the forty-fifth presidency.
Mad About Nixon
No other personality appeared more often on the cover of Mad during the first fifty years of the satirical magazine’s life.
The Laugh Track: Loathe It or Love It
The use of a laugh track began with radio, and was taken up by the new medium of television in 1950. Both viewers and critics have loathed it ever since.
The Mockumentary: A Very Real History
What's the appeal of humor masquerading as seriousness? An entire movie genre stands ready to shed light on that question.
Fake News: A Media Literacy Reading List
Compiled by graduate students in a 2016 course on “Activism and Digital Culture,” at University of Southern California.
La Pelona: The Hispanic-American Flapper
Flapperismo was no more appreciated by Hispanic guardians of traditional femininity than it was by Anglo-American ones.
Streaming Television Might Just Bring Us Together After All
A look at TV watching as a social activity, from the "water cooler" network shows of yore to today's "second screen" live-tweets.
Sor Juana, Founding Mother of Mexican Literature
How a 17th-century nun wrote poetry, dramas, and comedies that took on the inequities and double standards women faced in society.
P.G. Wodehouse, Great American Humorist?
Should P.G. Wodehouse, creator of the ditzy Wooster and inimitable Jeeves, be considered an American humorist as well as a master of British farce?