The Power of the Funny

In this episode I talk with Assistant Professor of Sociology Pamela G. Monaghan-Geernaert and Associate Professor of Communications Liz Sills about Native American political humor.  Professors Monaghan-Geernaert and Sills have an article published in the volume Political Humor Worldwide: The Cultural Context of Political Comedy, Satire, and Parody, (ed. Ofer Feldman, Springer 2024).  The title of their article is "The Power of Funny: Indigenous High Art as Quiescence and Rebellion".  Here is an excerpt from the article."In 2006 Apsáalooke artist Wendy Red Star released a print entitled The Last Thanks. Reminiscent of da Vinci’s The Last Supper, the piece features Red Star (in a traditional elk tooth dress) seated amid plastic skeletons wearing stereotypical Native headdresses at a table littered with unhealthy, prepackaged food...  The Last Thanks uses funny imagery to address this history with a message of looking toward the future with resilience while realistically confronting the horrors of the past. The creator of more recent Wolftrax episodes is Dr. Kristen Brown, assistant professor of English at Northern State University in Aberdeen, South Dakota. Older (and forthcoming) content consisting of faculty interviews comes from Professor Emeritus Ken Blanchard, the original creator of Wolftrax.