CHF Chicago Humanities Festival

Lecture

Mel Watkins

Mel Watkins: On the Real Side

 Launch Media

ABOUT 

  • ABOUT Mel Watkins

    Mel Watkins is a former editor and writer/critic for the New York Times Sunday Book Review. He has edited several anthologies, including Black Review, and is the author of On the Real Side: A History of African American Humor from Slavery to Chris Rock. A frequent contributor to national magazines and newspapers, Watkins has spoken or taught at a number of universities, including Rutgers, Yale, and the University of California. He is currently the NEH Professor of the Humanities at Colgate University.

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Minstrelsy was a springboard for virtually all African-American entertainment.       

Mel Watkins relates historical moments from the social history of underground African-American humor and its impact on American culture. Watkins discusses African-American humor ranging from its emergence during slavery through its evolution in blackface minstrelsy to such seminal comedians as Bert Williams, Stepin Fetchit, Moms Mabley, Dick Gregory, Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor, and Chris Rock.

Tags

Race, African-American history, stand-up comedy, stereotypes, blackface, minstrelsy

Dig Deeper

Broader Investigation

ethnic laughter

chf feature

The Color of Funny: Race & Ethnicity in Laughter

Lecture

The Color of Funny Dick Gregory on Race, Comedy, and Justice

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Laura Washington will interview the provocative and always unpredictable Dick Gregory.

Panel

An Incomplete History of Comedy in Hyde Park

Travel from the early 1950s and the Playwrights Theater Club, through the Compass Players of Alan Arkin, Elaine May, and Mike Nichols fame, to the present-day The Second City to learn how improvisational theater forms pioneered in Hyde Park changed the course of comedy.

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