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Stand-up Comedy in Africa

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Stand-up Comedy in Africa is a timely, interdisciplinary survey of an art form whose ubiquity prompts sundry technical, artistic, and political questions, for readers seeking critical guidance on t...
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  • 10 May 2022
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Wondering how people manage to laugh in the face of unrelenting political assault is one thing; puzzling at the explosion of stand-up comedy across Africa is another. With the former, one ponders the question of social resilience among agents desperate to rescue and preserve dignity and self-worth; with the latter, one launches a sociological inquest into the emergence and diverse facets of an industry that has taken full advantage of all the affordances of the emergent techno-media.

Stand-up Comedy in Africa is a timely, interdisciplinary survey of an art form whose ubiquity prompts sundry technical, artistic, and political questions. For those seeking critical guidance on the ethics and praxes of popular performance in Africa, this is as good a place as any to start.

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Price: $46.00
Pages: 316
Publisher: Ibidem Press
Imprint: Ibidem Press
Publication Date: 10 May 2022
Trim Size: 8.27 X 5.83 in
ISBN: 9783838216089
Format: Paperback
BISACs: SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / General
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By way of nuanced analyses of comic performances drawn from diverse national and cultural backgrounds this volume reveals in rich and fascinating detail the immense popularity of stand-up comedy in Africa. A must-read for anyone who wants to learn more about how jokes are staged, how mimicry is fused with mockery, and about what and why audiences laugh (not only) in Africa.
Izuu Nwankwọ is a researcher, teacher, and writer. He translated Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall into the Igbo language: Ihe Aghasaa (2007) and authored the books Yabbing and Wording: The Artistry of Nigerian Stand-up Comedy and Humour and Politics in Africa (co-authored with Daniel Hammett and Laura S. Martin).