"A Decade of Dark Humor" analyzes ways in which popular and visual culture used humor-in a variety of forms-to confront the attacks of September 11, 2001 and, more specifically, the aftermath. This interdisciplinary volume brings together scholars from four countries to discuss the impact of humor and irony on both media discourse and tangible political reality. Furthermore, it demonstrates that laughter is simultaneously an avenue through which social issues are deferred or obfuscated, a way in which neoliberal or neoconservative rhetoric is challenged, and a means of forming alternative political ideologies.

The volume's contributors cover a broad range of media productions, including news parodies ("The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," "The Colbert Report," "The Onion"), TV roundtable shows ("Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher"), comic strips and cartoons (Aaron McGruder's "The Boondocks," Jeff Danzinger's editorial cartoons), television drama ("Rescue Me"), animated satire ("South Park"), graphic novels (Art Spiegelman's "In the Shadow of No Towers"), documentary ("Fahrenheit 9/11"), and other productions.

Along with examining the rhetorical methods and aesthetic techniques of these productions, the essays place each in specific political and journalistic contexts, showing how corporations, news outlets, and political institutions responded to-and sometimes co-opted-these forms of humor.

This edited volume brings together scholars of comedy to assess how political comedy encounters neoliberal themes in contemporary media. Central to this task is the notion of genre; under neoliberal conditions (where market logics motivate most actions) genre becomes "mixed." Once stable, discreet categories such as comedy, horror, drama and news and entertainment have become blurred so as to be indistinguishable. The classic modern paradigm of comedy/tragedy no longer holds, if it ever did. Moreover, as politics becomes more economic and less moral or normative under neoliberalism, we are able to see new resistance to comedic genres that support neoliberal strategies to hide racial and gender injustice such as unlaughter, ambiguity, and anti-comedy. There is also an increasing interest with comedy as a form of entertainment on the political right following both Brexit in the UK and the election of Trump in the U.S. Several essays confront this conservative comedy and place it in context of the larger humor history of these debates over free speech and political correctness. For comedians too, entry into popular media now follows the familiar neoliberal script of the celebration of self-help with the increasing admonishment of those who fail to win in market terms. Laughter plays an important role in shaming and valorizing (often at the same time!) the precarious subject in the aftermath of global recession. Doubling down on austerity, self-help policies and equivocation in the face of extremist challenges (right and left), politics foils the critical comedian's attempt to satirize and parody its object. Characterized by ambiguity, mixed genre and the increasing use of anti-humor, political comedy mirrors the social and political world it mocks, parodies and celebrates often with lackluster results suggesting that the joke might be on us, as audiences.

Essays that illustrate how humor transformed 9/11 politics and 9/11 transformed humor With essays by: Gavin Benke Arthur Asa Berger Ted Gournelos Viveca S. Greene David Gurney David Holloway Lanita Jacobs Giselinde Kuipers Paul Lewis David Monje Michael Truscello Jamie Warner Aaron Winter A Decade of Dark Humor analyzes ways in which popular and visual culture used humor--in a variety of forms--to confront the attacks of September 11, 2001, and, more specifically, the aftermath. This interdisciplinary volume brings together scholars from four countries to discuss the impact of humor and irony on both media discourse and tangible political reality. Furthermore, it demonstrates that laughter is simultaneously an avenue through which social issues are deferred or obfuscated, a way in which neoliberal or neoconservative rhetoric is challenged, and a means of forming alternative political ideologies. The volume's contributors cover a broad range of media productions, including news parodies (The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report, The Onion), TV roundtable shows (Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher), comic strips and cartoons (Aaron McGruder's The Boondocks, Jeff Danzinger's editorial cartoons), television drama (Rescue Me), animated satire (South Park), graphic novels (Art Spiegelman's In the Shadow of No Towers), documentary (Fahrenheit 9/11), and other productions. Along with examining the rhetorical methods and aesthetic techniques of these productions, the essays place each in specific political and journalistic contexts, showing how corporations, news outlets, and political institutions responded to--and sometimes co-opted--these forms of humor. Ted Gournelos, Orlando, Florida, is assistant professor of critical media and cultural studies at Rollins College, and the author of Popular Culture and the Future of Politics: Cultural Studies and the Tao of "South Park." Viveca S. Greene, Northampton, Massachusetts, is visiting assistant professor of cultural studies at Hampshire College. Her work has appeared in The Nation, In Media Res, and We the Media: A Citizen's Guide to Fighting for Media Democracy.