HOKUM: AN ANTHOLOGY OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN HUMOR Edited by Paul Beatty Bloomsbury, 468 pp. $29-95 REALLY BLACK HUMOR Laugh tracks: Antholgist Paul Beatty spins a surprising set of yuks What's so funny about a well-gnawed watermelon rind, ends upturned and grinning beatifically, on...

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Billy Crystal will be awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.He's the 10th recipient of the award, given annually by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. It'll be presented Oct. 11 at a tribute performance that will be televised by PBS."The...

"Rush Hour" put Jackie Chan in Hollywood's major leagues, but the Hong Kong star isn't a fan of his successful action comedy franchise.Chan said when he made the first installment of the "Rush Hour" series in 1998 he only wanted to test the U.S. market...

In the following essay, Walker posits female humor writing as a challenge to the popular nineteenth-century notion of women as the frail and humorless keepers and producers of the "sentimental."

Blair is recognized as a prominent literary critic and has been identified by Hamlin Hill as "the foremost critic and analyst" of American humor writing. In this excerpt, which originally appeared in the May, 1931, issue of American Literature, Blair provides a comprehensive view of the genre as well as the argument that humor writing advanced the development of American literature.

In this excerpt, Habeggar argues that in the 1860s, "humor . . . was a club for men only," substantiating his assertion with a study of the masculine bias in several texts.