Table Of Contents:
Acknowledgements vii
General Introduction 1(18)
PART ONE: GENRE, NARRATIVE AND PERFORMANCE 19(36)

Introduction 19(2)

Performance, Enunciation and Self-reference in Hollywood Comedian Comedy 21(22)

Steve Seidman

Derailing the Honeymoon Express: Comicality and Narrative Closure in Buster Keaton's The Blacksmith 43(12)

Peter Kramer
PART TWO: APPROACHES TO SILENT COMEDY 55(32)

Introduction 55(2)

The Case of Silent Slapstick 57(16)

Steve Neale

Frank Krutnik

Buster Keaton, or the Work of Comedy in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction 73(6)

Tom Gunning

Charlie Chaplin and the Annals of Anality 79(8)

William Paul
PART THREE: SOUND COMEDY, THE VAUDEVILLE AESTHETIC AND ETHNICITY 87(36)

Introduction 87(4)

Anarchistic Comedy and the Vaudeville Aesthetic 91(14)

Henry Jenkins Ill

The Marx Brothers and the Search for the Landsman 105(18)

Mark Winokur
PART FOUR: COMEDIAN COMEDY AND GENDER 123(44)

Introduction 123(4)

She Done Him Wrong: Spectacle and Narrative 127(6)

Kathleen Rowe

Lucille Ball and the Regime of Domiculture 133(12)

Patricia Mellencamp

Comic Theory from a Feminist Perspective: A Look at Jerry Lewis 145(10)

Joanna E. Rapf

Queering the Deal: On the Road with Hope and Crosby 155(12)

Steven Cohan
PART FIVE: POST-CLASSICAL COMEDIAN COMEDY 167(32)

Introduction 167(4)

Laughing Mad: The Black Comedian's Place in American Comedy of the Post-Civil Rights Era 171(16)

Bambi L. Haggins

Low Blows? Theorizing Performance in Post-classical Comedian Comedy 187(12)

Philip Drake
Select Bibliography 199(4)
Index 203