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" Humour, rhetoric and racism : "
Weaver, Simon John
Osborne, Thomas
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Latin Dissertation
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| Record Number
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895071
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TLets809315
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| Main Entry
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University of Bristol
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| Title & Author
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Humour, rhetoric and racism :\ Weaver, Simon JohnOsborne, Thomas
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University of Bristol
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| Date
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2007
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| Degree
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Thesis (Ph.D.)
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2007
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| Abstract
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This thesis is a sociological examination of racist humour that uses a) linguistic models of humour to highlight how the mechanisms of humour work rhetorically, and b) the sociological theories of Zygmunt Bauman on the characteristics of order-building discourse in modernity and postmodernity. These ideas are applied to four specific modes or case studies of racist humour to show how it impacts on modem and postmodern discourse. In my first case study, embodied racist humour, a derivative of biological racism, is identified as a racism primarily aimed at black people in the US context, by expressing racist dichotomies and images of the removal of the black `other'. Second, culturally racist humour is shown to have a similar impact on racism aimed at British Asians. Third, the humour of black and Asian comics is examined as a key site of resistance to embodied and cultural racism, but one that is fraught with problems associated with the rearticulation of racism. Lastly, in the postmodern period, liquid racism is highlighted as an increasingly confused and diluted type. Throughout the thesis, racist humour is shown to have a series of interconnected roles in supporting the meaning systems of racism. Overall, the thesis provides a means of analysing racist humour, and in so doing moves sociological humour studies beyond accounts that fail to negotiate the particular semantic frame and functions of racist humour.
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Osborne, Thomas
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University of Bristol
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