Joke-performance in Africa : mode, media and meaning / edited by Ignatius Chukwumah.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Chukwumah, Ignatius, editor, contributor.

Series:

Routledge contemporary Africa series

Routledge contemporary Africa

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Joking--Africa.

Joking.

Africa--Humor.

Africa.

Comic, The.

Genre:

Humor.

Physical Description:

xvii, 290 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, 2018.

Summary:

"Jokes have always been part of African culture, but never have they been so blended with the strains and gains of the contemporary African world as today. Joke-Performance in Africa describes and analyses the diverse aesthetics, forms, and media of jokes and their performance and shows how African jokes embody the anxieties of the time and space in which they are enacted. The book considers the pervasive phenomenon of jokes and its performance across Africa in such forms as local jests, street jokes, cartoons, mchongoano, ehwe-eje, stand-up comedy, internet sex jokes, and 'comicast' transmitted via modern technology media such as the TV, CDs, DVDs, the internet platforms of YouTube, Facebook, and other social arenas, as well as live performances. Countries represented are Egypt, Kenya, Malawi, Morocco, Nigeria, and Zambia, covering the North, West, East and Southern Africa. The book explores the description of the joke form from various perspectives, ranging from critical discourse analysis, interviews, humour theories, psychoanalysis, the postcolony and technauriture, to the interactive dramaturgy of joke-performances, irrespective of media and modes of performance. Containing insightful contributions from leading African scholars, the book acquaints readers with detailed descriptions of the diverse aesthetics of contemporary African jokes, thereby contributing to the current understanding of joke-performance in Africa. It will appeal to students and scholars of African studies, popular culture, theatre, performance studies and literary studies."--Publisher's summary.

Contents:

Introduction

I. "Joking about the government".

(Re)imagining the postcolony in Kenya's The XYZ show joke-cartoons / Remmy Shiundu Barasa

Nigeria's 2015 presidential elections and the rise of "comicast" / Ignatius Chukwumah

Joking about the government : a close reading of the Moroccan comic show : "The school of the naughty" / Zakariae Bouhmala.

II. Traditional forms and (post)modern contexts.

Ehwe-ejẹ : art and humour in Urhobo joke-performance / Peter E. Omoko

Aesthetics of Anganga Afiki's video joke-performance in Malawi / Smith Likongwe

Joke-performance and the Tiv cultural context of satirizing and appraising postmodernity / Godwin Aondofa Ikyer

Egyptian satire in modern media age / Sebastian Gadomski.

III. Street jokes.

(Con)text and performance of mchongoano : an urban youth joke genre in Kenya / Wangari Mwai, David Kimongo and Charles Kebaya

Joke-performance in Egypt : halah and kouta hamra / Heba M. Sharobeem.

IV. Sex and gender.

The aesthetics of the ugly : perspectives on degrading online sex jokes in Kenya / Felix A. Orina and Fred W. Simiyu

Dorika's metamorphosis : the allusive potency of a comic character / Cheela Himutwe K. Chilala

From the "beautiful" to the "bold" : a linguistic analysis of some Doaa Farouk's humorous texts / Mona Eid Saad.

V. Stand-up comedy.

Severity in hilarity : appraising the satirical value of stand-up comedy in Nigeria / Samuel O. Igomu

Ideological undertones in mediatised comedy in "Churchill live" show of Kenya / Khaemba Josephine Mulindi & Michael Mule Ndonye.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

9781138060647

113806064X

OCLC:

994263297