I’m prefacing this with my flexibility as I want to know what you think. For my final project, I’m going to be working on a book proposal, that will be the format of this paper, about Queering Stand-Up Comedy: The Revolution Is Taking Place On-Stage (title working).

My key texts and my theoretical framework are: The theoretical framework is still a work in progress. Is the central claim of this: queering stand-up is a counterhegemonic force, intentionally diverging from heteronormativity and then to go into case studies? Is it the Stand-Up through a queer lens, what does this look like? Is it a heralding of a New Joke Order, where the community of stand-up is more reflective of culture as opposed to being this white male dominated arena? So those are my questions, and I will have more as I swish around this pool.

I’m going to be working with the following texts, but I suspect this is not a final list: Ahmed, Sara. “Queer Feelings.” The Cultural Politics of Emotion, Brodie, Ian. A Vulgar Art: A New Approach to Stand-Up Comedy, Crenshaw, Kimberle. “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color” , Eleftheriadis, Konstantinos. “‘Not Yet Queer Enough’: Constructing Identity through Culture.” Queer Festivals, Krefting, Rebecca. All Joking Aside: American Humor and Its Discontents, Muñoz, José Esteban. “Stages: Queers, Punks, and the Utopian Performative.” Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity, Morreall, John. Comic Relief : A Comprehensive Philosophy of Humor. There are heaps more texts I need to find and work with, I know. Plus there will be the body of work of the stand-up comics themselves, and this list is not finalized: Jaye McBride, Joel Kim Booster, Melody Kamali, Sabrina Jalees and it will probably change as I reach out to them and see who responds and is willing to be interviewed. Do I need someone uber-famous? Should I be reflective of multi-generational scene? So many questions.

My position as a researcher: So for years, I produced a stand-up show at UCB, which was hosted by Ruby Karp (yes, the spawn). Mostly because, she wanted to do stand-up and was too young to produce the show. So figure from 2012-2018. Once a month, five comics a show, sometimes more, sometimes less. The goal was to have four women, one dude. I had some other criteria: The line up had to be inclusive, I didn’t want an all white/straight/male line up, ever. I had to like the comics as people. Because the green room was tiny and so I didn’t want assholes back there. I put no limits on the material as I understand that jokes are just jokes but I also did not want to listen to a comic yell at the audience like Sam Kineson (sp?) did in the 80’s, so this meant I had to watch their set (youtube helped) before I booked them. I spent a lot of time watching and listening to the comics on stage as well as scouting talent, as of course, every month, there were new comics to review and ultimately, book for the show. So I begin there with my field work. Plus, there is the added bonus of living with a stand-up comic who now books their own show at The Stand in Union Square, and Dynasty Typewriter in LA.

This project matters to me and may matter to some others because: Because I love stand-up comedy. So, so much. And because there is yet to be documentation on the flourishing of queer comics on the scene. And the scene is really exciting right now.

My research question is: Trying to figure that out.