Kirsten Leng Publishes Book on Humor’s Power in U.S. Feminist History
By Chloe Borgida
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Associate Professor of Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies Kirsten Leng published a book with the University of Nebraska Press exploring the role of humor in late twentieth-century U.S. feminism.
Titled Pleasure, Play, and Politics, the book centers humor as a vital feminist resource. Drawing on extensive archival research, the book examines how satire, irony, and spectacle shaped activism, culture, and community-building. As Leng says, “tracing the throughline of humor through feminist history unsettles and refigures what we think we know about the feminist past,” drawing attention to “overlooked yet groundbreaking individuals and groups who have long been elided within existing stories about U.S. feminism.”
Through case studies ranging from the Guerrilla Girls and COYOTE to Florynce Kennedy and the Lesbian Avengers, Leng challenges stereotypes of feminists as humorless and highlights how laughter, anger, and pleasure coexisted in political struggle. “Not for nothing, many of the feminists most likely to use humor were sex-positive, queer, and marginalized within public life,” Leng notes, underscoring how illuminating their work “expands our definitions of what it has meant to be a feminist, and where feminism has percolated and proliferated in years past.”
By showing how humor sustained activists and helped movements grow, Pleasure, Play, and Politics may offer encouragement to contemporary feminists and social justice activists.
To purchase her book, visit: nebraskapress.edu