Comedy & Humor

Mainstays of the mass media and popular entertainment, comedy and humor serve as the sources of various pleasures and as the sites of complex negotiations of cultures, industries, aesthetics, and tastes. This issue of The Velvet Light Trap seeks articles on comedy and humor in a variety of contexts. Papers may address traditional forms undergoing change, new or emergent forms, or comedy or humor as a component of cultural discourses.

Possible topics for this issue include but are not limited to:
-forms and aesthetics of comedy (including emergent forms such as comic blogs and web memes)
-comic genres (e.g. romantic comedy, the buddy comedy, animated comedy, the sitcom)
-hybrid comedic forms (tragicomedy, dramedy, comedy-horror)
-media industries and comedy production
-comedy and/in politics
-humor and comedy in relation to race, gender, sexuality, class, or other forms of identity
-humor, taste, and cultural capital
nationally or culturally specific - or transnational/transcultural - forms of humor or comedy
-comic stars and authors
-comedy albums or other audio recordings
-comedy and/for children
-historical studies of comedy

Papers should be between 6,000 and 7,500 words (approximately 20-25 pages double-spaced), in MLA style with a cover page including the writer's name and contact information. Please send one electronic copy of the paper (including a one-page abstract) saved as a Word .doc file suitable to be sent to a reader anonymously. The journal's Editorial Advisory Board will referee all submissions. For more information or questions, or to submit a manuscript electronically, contact Andrea Comiskey (acomiskey@wisc.edu), Liz Ellcessor (ellcessor@wisc.edu), Lindsay Garrison (hogangarriso@wisc.edu), or Jonah Horwitz (horwitz2@wisc.edu). E-mail submissions are due October 15, 2010.

The Velvet Light Trap is an academic, peer-reviewed journal of film and television studies. Graduate students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Texas-Austin alternately coordinate issues. The Editorial Advisory Board includes such notable scholars as Peter Bloom, Mia Consalvo, David Desser, Yeidy Rivero, Joe McElhaney, Beretta Smith-Shomade, Darrell Hamamoto, Tara McPherson, Henry Benshoff, Joan Hawkins, Steve Neale, Aswin Punathambekar, Sean Griffin, Alisa Perren, Michael Newman, Radhika Gajjala, Richard Allen, and Michael Williams.