Tag Archives: comedy

Antti Lindfors contemplates page 99 of his dissertation

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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:

https://www.utupub.fi/handle/10024/147073

Amy Garey takes the page 99 test

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 Page 99 of my dissertation ends with a quote from a 2019 comedy festival, “KVN is, KVN lives, KVN will continue to live!” It sums up one of the strands of this research, which examines how a popular student game came to be both banned and supported by the Soviet state, both politically subversive and ideologically conservative, both grassroots phenomenon and media spectacle. KVN, an acronym for Klub Veselykh i Nakhodchivykh, or “Club of the Cheerful and Clever,” is a Soviet-bloc team comedy competition. It began in 1961 as a televised improv show, but students across the USSR soon adopted the game in their universities, organizing interdepartmental competitions and city-wide leagues. Students grew to love KVN because comedy helped them, as octogenarian Ukrainian Eduard Chechelnitsky put it, ”get round” the censors: young people could critique the state nonreferentially, voicing sentiments no one would allow in direct speech. Most, though, simply wanted to laugh and make others laugh. While competitors made (and make) political jokes, and while many found value in a forum that let them speak truth to power, it is humor that attracted participants.

Jokes worried Soviet ideologues, though, and in 1972 officials banned KVN—at least on television. But by that time KVN had spread to schools, universities, and summer camps from Kiev to Bishkek, and people openly played throughout the fourteen-year period of the “ban.” In interviews, KVNshiki (as participants are called) stressed triumph and autonomy as they described the game: KVN is ours, they seemed to say, not the state’s.

KVN’s extra-state nature has been highlighted by the war between Russia and Ukraine. Although Ukrainians and Russians no longer compete against each other, as they had before 2014, KVN remains as popular as it ever has been in domestic Ukrainian competitions. KVN lives. That millions of young people still play a game that began as a hokey 1960s Soviet game show, despite prohibitions, despite border closures, means something, socially. A lot of KVNshiki, beyond liking to laugh, believe in the personally and politically transformative potential of comedy. Page 99 illustrates some of the ways they renew those principles in everyday practice.

Amy Garey. 2020. The People’s Laughter: War, Comedy, and the Soviet Legacy. University of California, Los Angeles, Phd.