Laughing From all Our Mouths

Jokes reveal deeply held collective ideas about national identity, gender, race, and class. Although they can be wielded as a cudgel by the majority, caricature and parody can also be powerful subversive tools in the soft armory of the oppressed, as illustrated by Richard Powell in his recent book Going There: Black Visual Satire (2020). Yet, as he explains, audiences often require special cultural competencies to decode and appreciate satirical critique.

Hélène Cixous and Luce Irigaray both acclaimed the subversive potential of laughter and satire. When ‘laughs exude from all our mouths’, Cixous told us, we cease to accept or believe the myths that have defined us. ‘Isn’t laughter the first form of liberation from a secular oppression?’ Irigaray asked rhetorically. So why is feminism so rarely considered a laughing matter? There are some conspicuous examples of funny feminism as visual praxis from Florence Claxton’s The Choice of Paris: An Idyll (c. 1860) and Barbara Shermund’s cartoons for the New Yorker to posters by the Guerilla Girls (who celebrated forty years of visual arts activism in 2025). Yet across histories and cultures, definitions of feminism and senses of humor vary widely. This means that feminist satirical critique might be difficult to decode. 

This panel seeks papers addressing the connected histories of feminist art and visual satire broadly conceived. It seeks to uncover and explore how women artists, caricaturists, cartoonists, and/or illustrators have laughed at misogyny and sexism. It particularly seeks papers that will unpack an image or series of images within political, social, and cultural contexts to reveal how intersectional, situated competencies can sometimes be needed to decode feminist meanings.

Submit your Paper via this form. Please download, complete and send it directly to the Session Convenor(s) below by Sunday 2 November 2025:

Jennifer S. Griffiths, Independent, dr.jennifergriffiths@gmail.com