History 261 - Colloquium: Richard Pryor's America

When he died in 2005, a New York Times obituary described African American comedian Richard Pryor as “the groundbreaking comedian whose profanely personal insights into race relations and modern life made him one of Hollywood’s biggest stars.” Pryor innovated standup comedy thus inventing new discourses about race and modes of expressing antiracist thinking in the United States. This interdisciplinary colloquium dives into Pryor’s comedy and explores his cultural and historical influences–the legacy of enslavement, the origins of Black humor, the great migration, sex work and Black masculinities, respectability politics, comedy, Black Power, and Africa in the African American imagination. Enrollment limited to 18.