Comedy and Controversy: Scripting Public Speech (Elements in Contemporary Performance Texts) - Hardcover

Sarah Balkin , Marc Mierowsky

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1009565354 ISBN 13: 9781009565356

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2025

Synopsis

This is an Element book about stand-up comedy and public speech. It focuses on the controversies generated when the distinction between the two breaks down, when stand-up enters – or is pushed – into the public sphere and is interpreted according to the scripts that govern popular political and media rhetoric rather than the traditional generic conventions of comic performance. These controversies raise a larger set of questions about the comedian's public role. They draw attention to the intention of jokes and their effects in the world. And they force us to consider how the limits of comic performance – what can be said, by whom, and why – respond to, and can reshape, public discourse across changing media contexts.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1009565354
• ISBN 13: 9781009565356
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 68