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Format
inperson
Location and Room
School of Medicine and Dentistry, Room 2-6424 Large Auditorium
Address
415 Elmwood Ave, Rochester, NY 14642
Contemporary standup revises perspectives on mental illness and laughter, recalling how hysteria historically pathologized women’s laughter as a form of madness. My argument draws upon Jean-Martin Charcot’s displays of hysterical women in his “Tuesday Lessons” during the nineteenth century to reclaim the hysterical, feminine body through laughter in contemporary standup comedy. Specifically, the audience’s laughter reembodies the symptoms of hysteria, and I identify how comedians such as Taylor Tomlinson, Aminah Imani, Rebecca O’Neal, and Cristela Alonzo use these postconfessional strategies to create collective catharsis.
Format
inperson
Location and Room
School of Medicine and Dentistry, Room 2-6424 Large Auditorium
Address
415 Elmwood Ave, Rochester, NY 14642
Contemporary standup revises perspectives on mental illness and laughter, recalling how hysteria historically pathologized women’s laughter as a form of madness. My argument draws upon Jean-Martin Charcot’s displays of hysterical women in his “Tuesday Lessons” during the nineteenth century to reclaim the hysterical, feminine body through laughter in contemporary standup comedy. Specifically, the audience’s laughter reembodies the symptoms of hysteria, and I identify how comedians such as Taylor Tomlinson, Aminah Imani, Rebecca O’Neal, and Cristela Alonzo use these postconfessional strategies to create collective catharsis.