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humor



  • Are Conservatives Really Pulling Ahead in the Comedy Race?

    Does a ratings boost for Greg Gutfeld's late-night show mean that today's conservatives are the funny ones and liberals are too "woke" to laugh? Answering the question means looking past party loyalty to ask what makes humor, says humor historian Teresa Prados-Terreira. 


  • Advice to POTUS 46 from POTUS 1

    by David O. Stewart

    The author of a recent political biography of George Washington wonders how the first president would guide the most recent one. 



  • Bawdy Civil War Letters, In the Style of Ken Burns

    by Katie Hemphill

    Historian Katie Hemphill's recent crash course in video editing for Zoom teaching let her fulfill a longtime goal: set the bawdiest Civil War letters she found in her research to the stirring sounds of documentary music. Content Warning: Cuss Words.



  • An Oral History of the Onion's 9/11 Issue

    The satirical newspaper The Onion struggled to find a way to apply its trademark irreverance to the 9/11 terror attacks. For fans, however, the issue of September 27, 2001 met the grief and anger of the day with humor. 


  • Laughter in an Age of Pandemics

    by Michael A. Genovese

    We are all struggling, and we all need the distractions that only absurdity can provide. So laugh now and then; see the silly, the absurd and the comic in life.