NOV 2020 | ISSUE 13
Enjoy a good laugh with these reads on Politics & Comedy
Why are jokes about politics so popular? This week, we’ve voted for four interesting reads that explain the importance of humour in not only shaping our understanding of politics and government, but also in offering a channel for passive or subversive resistance.
More than just a form of entertainment, humour has come to play a central role in the contemporary media environment, shaping how we understand ideas of freedom, empathy, social boundaries and even logic.
Political humour questions the actions and assumptions of the party in power. Political jokes are acts of minor rebellion: their objective is not to overthrow a government but to correct its mistakes.
The political significance of comedy, both in its structure and its major characters, consists in its being the dramatic locus for the realisation of equality, liberation from oppression, freedom of thinking, and well‐being in ongoing interactions with others.
This paper explores the possibilities of considering humour and laughter as a serious matter of concern for critical geopolitics and political geography more generally. The paper also considers how these visceral expressions contribute, often in subtle ways, to the making of geopolitical subjectivities.
Reading News
Thanks for attending our October Book Club, and congrats to the trivia winners!
On 30th October 2020, ReadNUS held our 4th book club discussion session. In line with October’s book club theme on Halloween and horror, we decided to select The Handmaid’s Tale as the book of the month with its dystopian themed plot linked to the horror genre.
This session also marks the first time that ReadNUS conducted a trivia quiz in the session, with BooksActually vouchers as prizes! Through this session, readers were able to gain a greater appreciation about the book’s author, plot, and themes illustrated in the book while engaging in a lively discussion on topics such as US politics and feminism.
To access NUS Libraries’ E-Resources, head to https://nus.edu.sg/nuslibraries
Email any suggestions for future books or your book reviews to ReadNUS.
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