Satire, Humor and the Construction of Identities conveys how satire can contribute to the construction of social subjects’ identities. It attempts to provide a theoretical ground for a novel understanding of the relationship between satire and identity by finding their common denominator, namely opposition, in order to explain the mechanism through which satire can form identities. After establishing the role of opposition in satire and identity construction through a detailed analysis of various theories, it will be argued that satire can contribute to the construction of racial, ethnic, national, religious, and gender identities. Several examples from British, Persian, ancient Roman literary traditions, and different epochs illustrate the theoretical discussions. The prevalence of satire and the challenges that identity has encountered in our contemporary world guarantee the significance of this study and its socio-political implications.

This research employs the Theory of Planned Behavior and the Focus Theory of Normative Conduct to convey how The Late Show with Stephen Colbert employs humor and satire with the aim of providing information, proffering injunctive norms, and modifying attitudes and subjective norms in its public audience, while exposing the inefficacy of behavioral controls and urging public authorities to adopt effective ones instead. In the earlier stages of the pandemic in the US, the Show primarily appealed to people to change their behavior through providing information, invoking injunctive norms and affiliations, foregrounding appropriate attitudes and subjective norms; at the same time, its repertoire included social and political satire drawing on organizational and institutional mechanisms of behavioral control. As the health crisis became increasingly politicized, the Show redirected its satire to policies and political figures and sought to change the behavior of policymakers in setting proper role models and adopting wiser behavioral controls to lead the nation through the crisis. Meanwhile, individual responsibility was never spared in satiric attempts to change behavior as the Show continued to provide its audience with new scientific information and encouraged them to follow scientific recommendations.

Because most theories of humour emphasize its intersubjective and/or semantic nature, they fail to fully appreciate and explain self-directed humour. Through a critical exploration of the implications of different theories of humour and satire, this paper argues that the spectrum of reflexive humour and satire can be categorized according to the figure of the satirist and the target of satire, both of whom can feature individual or collective social selves. Depending on the satirist and the scope of satire, the functions of reflexive humour may range from securing psychological homeostasis to dealing with more impersonal, social and philosophical concerns.

No abstract

Dedicated to the dissemination of scholarly and professional information, Purdue University Press selects, develops, and distributes quality resources in several key subject areas for which its parent university is famous, including business, technology, health, veterinary medicine, and other selected disciplines in the humanities and sciences. CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, the peer-reviewed, full-text, and open-access learned journal in the humanities and social sciences, publishes new scholarship following tenets of the discipline of comparative literature and the field of cultural studies designated as "comparative cultural studies." Publications in the journal are indexed in the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (Chadwyck-Healey), the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (Thomson Reuters ISI), the Humanities Index (Wilson), Humanities International Complete (EBSCO), the International Bibliography of the Modern Language Association of America, and Scopus (Elsevier). The journal is affiliated with the Purdue University Press monograph series of Books in Comparative Cultural Studies. Contact: