'Variations of Anglophone Humor Studies'

A Special Issue of Crossroads. A Journal of English Studies

Edited by Kamil Chrzczonowicz and Jack Harrison (University of Warsaw, Poland)

As argued by Danielle Fuentes Morgan in Laughing to Keep from Dying (2020, University of Illinois Press): "What we are witnessing in the twenty-first century is the critical expansion of the parameters of satire because when quotidian lived experiences verge on the absurd, the frame of satire itself may not hold. After all, how can satire subvert the rules of the game when life itself seems to do so?" (161). In other words, Anglophone satire, comedy, and humor are at a crossroads. On the one hand, continuing longstanding literary, stand-up, or cinematic traditions, contemporary comic art remains a powerful instrument of social, cultural, and political critique. On the other, it seeks novel forms of expression, traverses newfound media landscapes, and explores uncharted conceptual realms. 

One paradoxical common feature of the contemporary comedic landscape is its cultural, expressive, and intellectual variety. Whether focused on external critique or introspective reflection, comic art is polyphonic, incorporating multiple perspectives, from experimental to traditional, liberal to conservative, somber to silly, confrontational to conciliatory, anthropocentric to ecocritical, escapist to activist. Crossroads. A Journal of English Studies invites all potential authors to analyze the facets of Anglophone humor, satire, and comedy in submissions for articles examining the transformative landscape of comic art and showcasing an interdisciplinary variety of Anglophone humor studies.

Potential topics of interest include (but are not limited to):

1. (Non-)Anthropocentric Humor: The use of non-human animals in contemporary satire and comedy, be it through symbolism, personification, or realistic depiction. What does it say about our coexistence with other species? How does the portrayal of the animal kingdom critique the Anthropocene and offer fresh perspectives on human cultures, behaviors, or prejudices? Do animals have any agency in their use for comedic purposes? 

2. Racial and Gender (Anti-)Essentialism: How do humor, satire, and comedy move away from age-old stereotypical racial and gender representations toward more nuanced, contextualized portrayals? How do they entrench or subvert essentialist views?

3. Intersections of Humor and Horror: How do satire and comedy employ elements of fear, dread, the surreal, and the supernatural to resonate with and unsettle contemporary audiences? Are there similarities between building and releasing tension in horror, satire, and comedy? How does humor in horror go beyond mere comic relief? 

4. The Introspective Turn: The rise of comedians and satirists using the stage, screen, or literature not just for cultural, social, or political critique but as a setting for individual and group therapy. How do they address and break taboos around the issues of addiction, trauma, disability, as well as physical and mental health? How do they relate these problems to the realities of living in a modern capitalist society? 

5. Digital Humor: Examining the evolution and significance of humor, satire, and comedy in the digital age. How have video games, satirical apps, hyperfiction, memes, blogs and vlogs, Webcomics, generative AI, or platforms like Reddit, YouTube, TikTok, and Twitter shaped and changed the realm of comedy and satirical commentary? How does the convergent, participatory, interactive nature of new media shape the landscape of humor? 

6. Right-Wing Humor: The second decade of the 21st century marked a rise in politically conservative comic voices. The rising popularity of right-wing humor on social media, cable news stations, and the stand-up stage complicates the progressive, liberal image of satire solidified during the cultural revolution of the 1960s. What does this ideational shift say about the contemporary political moment? 

7. Alternative comedy. To be an alt-comedian in the 1950s meant to rebel against the institutional censorship and the middle-class, buttoned-up WASP culture of the American suburbs. In the 1990s and early 2000s, it meant performing outside the mainstream club circuit and embracing then-niche topics and performance styles. What does it mean to be an alt comic nowadays, when most taboos of language and subject matter have been broken, and when the Internet has segmented the cultural market and blurred the lines between what is considered mainstream and alternative? 

Submissions should foster a deeper understanding of Anglophone humor, satire, and comedy, emphasizing their cultural and societal impact, formal innovations, conceptual changes, and/or the relationship between a particular comedic medium and its content. 

Crossroads, a journal of English Studies, is an open-access, peer-reviewed electronic quarterly published by the University of Bialystok, Poland. It covers the broad areas of English language, linguistics, and Anglophone literature and provides a forum for contrastive (cross-linguistic, cross-cultural) and interdisciplinary research in linguistics, literature, cultural studies, and intercultural communication. The journal welcomes and encourages submissions from scholars of diverse backgrounds and disciplines.

Crossroads does not charge any publication fees to authors or their institutions. It uses double-blind peer review. The review process usually takes up to 12 weeks. 

The release of the special issue on Anglophone humor is planned for the first quarter of 2026. The special issue Crossroads will be edited by Kamil Chrzczonowicz, Ph.D., and Jack Harrison, Ph.D., Assistant Professors at the Institute of English Studies, University of Warsaw (https://ia.uw.edu.pl/en/institute/faculty-staff/kamil-chrzczonowicz; https://ia.uw.edu.pl/en/institute/faculty-staff/jack-harrison). 

Submissions should be sent to humorcrossroads@gmail.com 

For any queries, please contact the editors at kchrzczonowicz@uw.edu.pl and/or j.harrison@uw.edu.pl 

Submission Guidelines:

- All submissions should adhere to the following style guide: https://czasopisma.filologia.uwb.edu.pl/index.php/c/forauthors 

- The manuscript should not exceed 8,000 words.

- The text should be preceded by an abstract (150-200 words summarizing the aims of the paper, its main points and findings) and 5-8 keywords.

- Submissions should be sent as a Word document to humorcrossroads@gmail.com 

Deadline for submissions of abstracts: July 10, 2025

Deadline for submissions of full papers: October 10, 2025 

 Contact Information

Submissions should be sent to humorcrossroads@gmail.com 

For any queries, please contact the editors at kchrzczonowicz@uw.edu.pl and/or j.harrison@uw.edu.pl