The gang is back with a pre-game episode on Saturday Night Live's upcoming season! Check it out here: snl101.info/2025/10/04/s...

🚨🚨 My dear friend and fellow academic, the Palestinian American sociologist @emanabdelhadi.bsky.social has been taken by the Cook County Sheriff near Chicago. They have not mirandized her. Please signal boost. All eyes on Broadview for Eman and the community she was defending 🚨🚨

In recognition of World Smile Day, the Laughing Matters Council teamed up to share a few of the moments that have kept us smiling in recent months. www.peppercomm.com/celebrating-...

US comedians and the mythology of being “champions of free speech” and “speaking truth to power” has evaporated www.theguardian.com/culture/2025...

wrote something about disagreeable speech. find it here theopinionpages.com/2025/09/thou...

a timely piece from my colleague @rachelhoopsick.bsky.social on the importance of public health

“A people can be deprived of wealth and power, but one of the worst deprivations is depriving them of the means of perceiving and articulating their deprivation, and thereby of developing a vision and strategy and tactics for fighting it.” -Ngugi wa Thiongo

"...all that can save you now is your confrontation with your own history... Your history has led you to this moment, and you can only begin to change yourself and save yourself by looking at what you are doing in the name of your history." --James Baldwin www.commondreams.org/opinion/trum...

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spread the word. somebody out here still hiring....

Proud to be a 2025-2026 #PublicVoices Fellow with @TheOpedProject and @UofILSystem.

"The Israeli general who headed military intelligence on 7 October 2023 has said 50 Palestinians must die for every person killed that day and “it does not matter now if they are children”." www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

"Without a doubt, Traoré‘s leadership and the movements it has created in Burkina Faso and beyond offer an inflection point for Africans and their leaders to return to their Pan-African roots." www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianou...

Israeli far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said plans to build more than 3,000 homes in a controversial settlement project in the occupied West Bank will "bury the idea of a Palestinian state". www.bbc.com/news/article...

"Satire can be a powerful agent of those wider, slower forms of political and social change, though when measured against the immediate political intentions of its authors it can seem as though it has achieved nothing at all." Let custards quake www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

The delusion of racial exceptionalism in search of a rationale for racial domination #WhitenessIsTheGreatestRacialFraud www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Chief Justice Roger Taney's declaration that Black folk have no rights "the white man was bound to respect" extended by ICE: "You've got no rights here. You're a migo, brother." www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

don't fall for the banana in the tailpipe... www.npr.org/2025/07/20/n...

Relationships of dependency and domination are everywhere www.wired.com/story/enshit...

We talk about the power of news parody with Local News Stories and Press Junket, as well as the complexity of humorous gaze with Couples at the Bar and food Ethics in Victorian Ladies Who Lunch. We also discuss Mike Myers Elevator Ride and Joke Swap. snl101.info/2025/07/08/s...

"Certain essential aspects of the world are accessible only to laughter." -Mikhail Bakhtin

We discuss the construction of slapstick with A Guy Who Just Walked into a Spiderweb on Trump’s Tariffs, the complexity of racial representation in The Movie Guy on Upcoming Summer Blockbusters, and the humor potential of revealing intimate spaces in Boss’s Bathroom. snl101.info/2025/06/10/s...

We discuss inside humor and racial epithets on Weekend Update: Two Applebee’s Barflies Duke and Darlene, the complicated experience of laughing at oneself in Two Bitches vs. a Gorilla and Forever 31, and the racial politics of time in Will and Todd’s Radical Experience. snl101.info/2025/06/04/s...

I enjoyed joining the Pretty Much Pop crew to talk about Ryan Coogler's new film, Sinners. You can listen here: prettymuchpop.com/2025/05/14/p...

Looking forward to chopping it up with folks at the Critical Humor Studies Association conference this week. criticalhumorstudies.org/conferences/

We discuss satirizing socioeconomic inequality in Check to Check Business News, civil disobedience with Emil Wakim on American Patriotism, and the complexity of roasting and comedy writing via Guess! The Correct! Answer!, Gay Parents, and The White Potus. snl101.info/2025/04/20/s...

CFP: Special Issue: AI and Public Philosophy The Public Philosophy Journal invites contributions for a special issue focused on AI and public philosophy. philevents.org/event/show/1...

We discuss the implications of the call-and-response-gone-wrong in Ego Nwodim on the WHCD, ethical non-monogamy in Making Love, the potential of framing to disrupt collective memory in Times Square Kiss, and The First Play through multiple lens. snl101.info/2025/04/12/s...

We discuss punching down and missed opportunities as well as the art of waiting in Big Dumb Line, reboot culture in Please Don’t Destroy – Mikey Madison is Squidward, and the dynamics #snl101 snl101.info/2025/04/05/s...

"humor, like poetry, has an extra content. It plays close to the big hot fire which is Truth, and sometimes the reader feels the heat." E.B. White, "Some remarks on humor"

"one ought to recognize that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end." -George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language"

sent book 2 off to the publisher. now back to revising book 1...

I know we’re lost as a nation because Stephen A Smith is on CNN holding forth…

We discuss the power of satire in the Trump, Musk and Rubio Meeting Cold Open, satirizing masculinity and power in Weekend Update: Lord Gaga on His Unwavering Support for His Wife Lady Gaga, the manic pixie dream girl and commodity feminism in Mascara Commercial,

If you find yourself in the Evanston area this weekend...

Before Lady Gaga on @nbcsnl.bsky.social tonight, listen to #snl101 discuss how to use the Shane Gillis episode in the classroom. We discuss the Opening Monologue, the Cold Open, Mid-Day News 2, Jane Wickline, and CouplaBeers. snl101.info/2025/03/08/s...

the anti-intellectual assault continues

"The problem is so tenacious [unresolved inequality] because, despite its virtues and attributes, America is deeply racist and its democracy is flawed both economically and socially." --Martin Luther King Jr. "A Testament of Hope"

If you didn’t know of someone for whom the cancellation of cancer treatment trials was a matter of life and death, now you do. Especially folks in GOP districts, call your representatives and tell them you want people like Helen to have a chance to live. Thank you. 🧪

catch our special episode of SNL101 where we are joined by illustrious guests: Danielle Fuentes Morgan, Brittney Edmonds, Raul Perez, and Chuck Hayward! We also feature insights from Bob Thompson, Noel Carroll, and Dan Amernick. Check it out here: snl101.info/2025/02/25/s...

Looking forward to hanging out with the good folks at Oklahoma State University next week.

#SNL101 has some special content on the way. Stay tuned for rich discussion with illustrious guests about the SNL 50 anniversary episode.

Looking forward to speaking about racial satire with the Scottish Aesthetics Forum. Info at the link below. www.scottishaestheticsforum.com

If you see this and you're in the mood, quote post with a beach picture in your gallery.

If you should happen to find yourself in or around Chambana... calendars.illinois.edu/detail/7041/...