“Making Such Spaces . . . Where None Previously Existed”: Interstitial Wit in Fran Ross’s Oreo

IF 0.9 0 HUMANITIES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY

Studies in American Humor Pub Date : 2023-03-01 DOI:10.5325/studamerhumor.9.1.0013

Benjamin Schwartz

引用次数: 0

Abstract

ABSTRACT:This article explores how Fran Ross’s 1974 novel Oreo uses humor to challenge static notions of Black, Jewish, and American identity. Through her mock heroic quest, Oreo’s eponymous protagonist develops WIT (“Way of the Interstitial Thrust”), a system of self-defense that draws on her multifaceted identity as a Jewish, African American woman and that she uses to successfully navigate spaces that threaten her with physical violence and symbolic erasure. In its hilarious exploration of the complexity and commodification of identity in the late twentieth century United States, Oreo provides a still-relevant example of how humor can create new spaces for minoritized subjects who exist in the “interstices” of the landscape of American cultural production.

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“创造这样的空间……《先前不存在的地方》:弗兰·罗斯的奥利奥中的插页智慧

摘要:本文探讨了弗兰·罗斯1974年出版的小说《奥利奥》如何用幽默挑战黑人、犹太人和美国人的固有身份观念。奥利奥的同名主人公通过模仿英雄的探索，发展出了WIT(“间隙推进之路”)，这是一种自卫系统，利用了她作为一名犹太、非裔美国女性的多重身份，她利用这种身份成功地穿越了那些以身体暴力和象征性抹除威胁她的空间。《奥利奥》以滑稽的方式探索了20世纪后期美国身份的复杂性和商品化，它提供了一个至今仍有意义的例子，说明幽默如何为存在于美国文化生产景观“间隙”中的少数群体创造新的空间。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Studies in American Humor HUMANITIES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY-

CiteScore

1.40

自引率

90.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： Welcome to the home of Studies in American Humor, the journal of the American Humor Studies Association. Founded by the American Humor Studies Association in 1974 and published continuously since 1982, StAH specializes in humanistic research on humor in America (loosely defined) because the universal human capacity for humor is always expressed within the specific contexts of time, place, and audience that research methods in the humanities strive to address. Such methods now extend well beyond the literary and film analyses that once formed the core of American humor scholarship to a wide range of critical, biographical, historical, theoretical, archival, ethnographic, and digital studies of humor in performance and public life as well as in print and other media. StAH’s expanded editorial board of specialists marks that growth. On behalf of the editorial board, I invite scholars across the humanities to submit their best work on topics in American humor and join us in advancing knowledge in the field.