Jack Rosenbalm Prize for Scholarship in American Humor
Awarded to the best article on American humor by a pre-tenure scholar, graduate student, adjunct professor, or independent scholar published in a peer-reviewed academic journal or book published in 2022 or 2023 Please submit by 1/15/2024 to: wustert@gmail.com and pkunze@tulane.edu
Articles will be judged by a committee of three scholars appointed by the AHSA Board. Those selected will be notified by the end of March 2024. Articles will be judged by blind peer review.
Applicants are invited to submit an electronic copy (in .doc, .docx, or .pdf form) of their articles together with the registration form to wustert@gmail.com and
All copies should be formatted for blind review and thus without identifying references or title. Applicants do not need to be members of the AHSA to submit.
Prizes:
Prize: $100; one-year membership in the AHSA; paid conference registration for the next AHSA conference.
The winner will receive a notice by the selection committee on the prize and the reasons the article was selected.
Prize Committee
TBA
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Jack Rosenbalm Essay Prize Registration Form
Please fill out this form completely, save it in a file named with your name, followed by AHSA Prize 22-23 and send it with the electronic version your article by email to wustert@gmail.com and pkunze@tulane.edu . This form and the article should be in .doc, .docx, or .pdf form. Please make sure your article does not mention your name or other identifying information anywhere.
Name: ______________________________________________________________________
Select one: [ ] Graduate Student [ ] Independent Scholar [ ] Assistant Professor
[ ] Adjunct, or other non-tenured scholar
Department: _________________________________________________________________
Institutional affiliation: _________________________________________________________
Title of article: ________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
Journal title: __________________________________________________________________
Volume: _____________ Issue: _____________ Date of publication: _____________________
OR
Accepted for (date of publication): ________________________________________________
Mailing Address:____________________________________
__________________________________________________
NOTE: If not yet published, please include a copy of the acceptance letter verifying that it will have a 2023 journal publication date (even if the actual edition will not appear until 2024).
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Signature Date
2020-2022 Awards for the Jack Rosenbalm Prize.
Committee members: Jim Caron, Maggie Hennefeld, Albert Laguna
We are delighted to recognize three different essays this year, which we feel are each strong on their own terms and collectively represent the scope and versatility of the field of American Humor Studies. The winner, “The Politics of Humor: From Dry to Wet,” by Kyle Stevens identifies a new concept of “wet humor” (in opposition to the familiar category of dry humor) that operates by way of excess and obviousness to affirm belief in an era ridden with gaslighting, fake news, and the crisis of truth. This article is beautifully written, epistemologically timely, and expansive in scope, traversing Arendt’s philosophy of laughter, queer and anti-racist protest memes, and critical theories of comedy, affect, and politics.
We are also pleased to acknowledge two essays for honorable mention. First, “Open Mic? The Gendered Gatekeeping of Authenticity in Spaces of Live Stand-Up Comedy” by Stephanie Brown. This article takes us to a place where so many comedy careers begin and end— local stand-up comedy scenes. Turning our attention to open mic nights and the discrimination women face as they navigate the gender politics of these spaces allows for a more comprehensive understanding of the barriers to increased comic representation for women on the national stage. The author deftly combines ethnographic study of open mic comic performers in Illinois with a critical framework drawn from feminist, media, and production studies in the service of a compelling scholarly narrative.
Second is “‘Like a Realtor in Peoria’: Patton Oswalt, Twitter, and Heckling as Social Activism” by Steven Kapica. This article defines Patton Oswalt’s social media-based comedy as a rhetoric of agitation that has the potential for enabling activism and social change. Useful distinctions are made between heckling and trolling as forms of joking, and the author establishes the crucial difference between comedy club interaction of performer/audience and online interaction between celebrities and enclaves of followers. Issues of publics and counter-publics in social media operate as background to Oswalt’s reputation as an avid commentator/satirist and his place in the alt-comedy scene to provide a solid context for the claims and distinctions.
2018-2019 Jack Rosenbalm Prize for American Humor Studies
We are pleased to announce the winner of the Jack Rosenbalm Prize for American Humor Studies for 2018-2019. The committee awarded the prize to Perin E. Gürel’s essay “Amerikan Jokes: The Transnational Politics of Unlaughter in Turkey, which appeared in American Quarterly (Volume 71, Issue 1, March 2019).
The judges wrote about this article:
“We all agreed that this article was beautifully written, demonstrated keen research skills, and introduced original arguments as it made insightful connections between humor and international diplomacy through its transnational approach to American studies. The article examines the intersection between American humor and Turkish politics in the second half of the 20th century. The writer skillfully analyzes how American humor and so-called ‘American jokes’ were popular in Turkey and how they were viewed as benign during the post-World War II era, a time when Turkey was one of the beneficiaries of the Marshall Plan. Turks perceived American humor to be part of a desirable, if at times silly and childish, modern and modernizing world. Yet the overwhelming intrusion of American culture and, in later decades, the growing disagreement between the U.S. and Turkey led Turks to view American humor as a manifestation of U.S. imperialism. The article places its subject firmly within this historical and political framework and incorporates a rich theoretical dimension that opens up methodological possibilities for future studies of American humor in an international context.”
The judges also chose an Honorable Mention for the prize: Albert Sergio Laguna’s essay “Edgardo Vega Yunqué and the Comedy of Race,” which appeared in Contemporary Literature (Volume 59, Issue3, 2018).
The judges wrote about this article:
“We appreciated the article’s concise synthesis of Edgardo’s writings, its complex close readings of his work, and, not least, the important recovery work that it undertakes.”
Thanks to Todd Thompson (Chair), Teresa Prados-Torreira, and Beck Krefting for their hard work.
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2016-2017
We are pleased to announce the winner of the Jack Rosenbalm Prize for American Humor Studies for 2016-2017. The committee awarded the prize to Jessyka Finley’s essay “Black Women’s Satire as (Black) Postmodern Performance,” which appeared in Studies in American Humor (Series 4, Volume 2, Number 2, 2016)
The judges wrote about this article:
In “Black Women’s Satire as (Black) Postmodern Performance,” Jessyka Finley examines the under-explored work of African-American women’s postmodern humor which functions to destabilize historical narratives that “relegate black women to the margins of United States society.” She explores the performances of Danitra Vance and Leslie Jones on Saturday Night Live as well as the work of web-series performers Azie Mira Dungey in Ask a Slave and Issa Rae in The Mis-Adventures of Awkward Black Girl. Throughout this well-crafted and compelling discussion, Finley contends that black women’s satire “becomes a postmodern performance tactic for comprehending, and engaging with, their personal and political interventions.” Employing careful readings of individual performances, she demonstrates the depth and complexity of material that merits more critical attention. The resulting essay is a formidable contribution toward meeting that need. Finley’s analysis breaks new ground in the field of postmodern studies of black comediennes and opens the door for further examinations generated by this illuminating inquiry.
We would like to thank Gillian Johns, Gretchen Martin, and Jeffrey Melton for their excellent work on the committee.
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2014-2015
We are pleased to announce the winners of the Jack Rosenbalm Prize for American Humor Studies for 2014-2015. The committee awarded the prize to Maggie Hennefeld’s essay “Destructive Metamorphosis: The Comedy of Female Catastrophe and Feminist Film Historiography,” which appeared in Discourse: Journal for Theoretical Studies in Media and Culture (Vol. 36: Iss. 2, Article 2).
We also awarded an Honorable Mention to “Cuban Miami on the Air: Narratives of Cubanía” by Albert Sergio Laguna, which appeared in the Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies (Vol. 23, Iss. 1, 2014). We would like to thank Linda Morris, James Caron, and David Sloane for their excellent work on the committee.
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2013 Winner:
On behalf of the Selection Committee for the Jack R. Rosenbalm Essay Prize offered by the American Humor Studies Association, we are pleased to announce the selection of Ina Seethaler’s essay, “Big Bad Chinese Mama: How Internet Humor Subverts Stereotypes about Asian American Women,” which the was the unanimous choice of the committee, with special praise for its clarity, originality, and insight. We would like to thank Bruce Michelson, Gina Barecca, and Larry Howe for their work as the judging panel.
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American Humor Studies Association 