On Second Thought

Abstract

Editorial| September 05 2023 On Second Thought Studies in American Humor (2023) 9 (2): 205–210. https://doi.org/10.5325/studamerhumor.9.2.0205 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation On Second Thought. Studies in American Humor 5 September 2023; 9 (2): 205–210. doi: https://doi.org/10.5325/studamerhumor.9.2.0205 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectivePenn State University PressStudies in American Humor Search Advanced Search Editors:While reading Benjamin Schwartz’s excellent essay “‘Making Such Spaces … Where None Previously Existed’: Interstitial Wit in Fran Ross’s Oreo,” I was struck most by how Schwartz deftly ties the novel’s use of humor to the notion of community building.1 Schwartz argues that the “power that humor affords Oreo is inextricably related, as the acronym ‘WIT’ suggests, to the fact that as a Black girl she occupies an in-between space, what Hortense Spillers refers to as the ‘interstices’ of American culture” (16). It’s in those “interstices,” Schwartz goes on to suggest, that humor can open up space to communicate shared experiences and create a sense of affinity among minoritized groups.This argument is especially compelling given that such groups are often framed as being mutually exclusive and that humor is often used to target and emphasize difference. Even for members of a minoritized identity, telling jokes about... You do not currently have access to this content.