Page 99 of my dissertation, titled “Intimately Allegorical: The Poetics of Self-Mediation in Stand-Up Comedy”, consists of the thesis’ reference literature. More precisely, this page showcases some of the authors consulted in the thesis whose last name starts with the letter B. From Regina Bendix to Charles L. Briggs – illustrating my dissertation’s rootedness in the borderlands between folklore studies, linguistic anthropology, and European ethnology – through Walter Benjamin, Henri Bergson, and Lauren Berlant – reflecting my thesis’ indebtedness to cultural studies more broadly – I relied on writers from a variety of disciplinary traditions in devising my perspective onto the genre of stand-up comedy as poetic form in social context.
Upon retrospective reflection, four years after the defense, my dissertation really revolved around the two main features (or rather ideals) of this poetic form that has recently seemed to experience another resurgence in popularity (this time globally): its metaphysics of presence and its desire for immediacy, to borrow Derrida (1976). As elaborated on page 31 with reference to the constitutive tripartite relationality between the stand-up comic, her routines, and audience:
While the former relationship (between the comic and routines) is perceived in terms of authentic self-presence—the comic’s routines referencing or deriving from her “real” self, in that stand-ups “play themselves”—the latter relationship (between the comic and audience) is perceived through the immediacy of being together in place and time by way of direct interaction.
Undoubtedly, stand-up thrives on the reappropriation of these very ideals, as comedians deftly engage in layers upon layers of self-referential commentary on the intricacies of their own performances. Come to think of it now, it probably had something to do with this mercurial nature – coupled with affective intensity – of stand-up comedy that initially captivated my interest and led me to embark on its study, although it took me several years to explicitly articulate just that.
Oh, and in case you were wondering why the thesis seems to come to its conclusion already on page 99, it’s an article-based dissertation with four peer-reviewed articles besides the introduction.
REFERENCES
Derrida, Jacques (1976) Of Grammatology. Trans. G. Spivak. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
You can find the dissertation here:
CaMP Anthropology 