Humour, subjectivity and world politics: Everyday articulations of identity at the limits of order

Questions about the ethical and political boundaries of comedy, satire, or irony have inspired widespread anxiety in recent years, as with the 2015 shootings at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris, or the so called ‘locker-room banter’ that defined Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign. What, then, can a turn to humour offer International Relations?

Drawing on literature across International Relations, literary theory, cultural studies and sociology, Alister Wedderburn argues that humour p...