About The Comedy Against Authority Project

Welcome to Comedy Against Authority! This digital archive began in 2023 as part of a research project on the topic of twentieth-century comedy against authoritarianism. It has since broadened to include humour against censorious and antidemocratic authority. This archive is the work of Diana Solomon, Sean Zwagerman, and Sarah Cipes, is hosted by Simon Fraser University, and has been supported by a Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Kickstarter Grant and a Department of English Research Grant.

So what does Comedy Against Authority look like? Underlying this archive is the recognition that humour can be much more than a temporary respite from sociopolitical problems. The examples here demonstrate the potential of comedy to defy antidemocratic powers and imagine alternatives: other ways to talk, think, interact with one another, and construct social reality.

We invite you to contribute your own ideas or examples of Comedy Against Authority here

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About the Creators

The “Comedy Against Authority” project was created by Dr. Diana Solomon and Dr. Sean Zwagerman of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Simon Fraser University. The site was built and co-curated by Sarah Cipes, MIS.

Dr. Diana Solomon is associate professor of English at Simon Fraser University. She is the author of Prologues and Epilogues of Restoration Theater: Gender and Comedy, Performance and Print, co-editor of Women and Comedy: History, Theory, Practice, and co-author, with the Multigraph Collective, of Interacting with Print: Elements of Reading in the Era of Print Saturation, She has published articles on Restoration actresses, closet drama, eighteenth-century audiences, mad songs, Don Quixote, anecdotes, and Shakespeare in the eighteenth century, and is currently at work on a book project about the eighteenth-century English theatre audience’s taste in comedy. You can find out more about Diana’s publications and research here.

Dr. Sean Zwagerman is an associate professor of English at Simon Fraser University. His research focuses broadly on rhetoric and writing and in the compositional relationship among the word, the self, and the world. His particular research interests include the intersections of rhetorical theory and analytic philosophy, the rhetoric of humour, and public outrage about plagiarism and literacy. Dr. Zwagerman’s publications about comedy and humour theory include Wit’s End: Women’s Humor as Rhetorical and Performative Strategy 2010; “‘Comedy is What We’re Really About’: The Grateful Dead in a Comic Frame” 2020 and “The Scholarly Transgressions of Constance Rourke” 2017, “Little House on the Tundra: Female Winners of the Leacock Award for Canadian Comedy,” co-authored with Diana Solomon 2023. More about Sean’s publications and research here.

Sarah Cipes is a PhD candidate in Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies (Digital Arts & Humanities) at UBC Okanagan, with a BA in English from UBCO and a Master of Information (Archives and Records Management) from the University of Toronto. Her research explores the intersections of digital archiving, feminist media studies, and humour studies, with a particular focus on the preservation and analysis of stand-up comedy performance. She currently serves as an Archives Associate with the Kelowna Museums Society. Sarah has presented her work at national and international conferences and is the recipient of multiple graduate research awards recognizing her contributions to archival and digital humanities scholarship. She has contributed to major projects such as the SSHRC-funded SpokenWeb Partnership.

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