Date of Award

Spring 2026

Document Type

Open Access Dissertation

Department

English Language and Literatures

First Advisor

Chris Holcomb

Abstract

This dissertation develops “laughing feminism” by providing frameworks for interpreting laughter within feminism. More specifically, I seek to understand laughter in feminism that is unexpected, out of tune, and oftentimes decoupled from humor and to analyze its rhetorical potentials in feminist practices, politics, and theories. I use both Cicero and Cixous as heuristics to lead my project. I adopt Cicero’s general rhetorical perspective – his focus on what laughter does rather than what it is – however, his model of laughter is ultimately a masculine one. Thus, I turn to Cixous for a feminist rhetorical model, using Medusa’s laughter as a speaker-centered model to lead my analyses of the feminist rhetorics of laughter. As a rhetorician, I’ve chosen to begin with rhetoric and study various laughing feminist figures who are present in feminist politics including Hélène Cixous’s Medusa, Kathleen Rowe’s unruly woman, and Sara Ahmed’s feminist killjoy, and while Diane Davis does not offer a shattering laughing figure, I examine how feminist speakers might also use shattering laughter as a feminist practice. From these, I derive differing rhetorical models of feminist laughter and ultimately develop feminist politics for laughing feminism. My project makes three major contributions: laying out three major theories of laughter in feminism, making the discourse of laughter in feminism accessible, and bringing laughing feminism to rhetorical feminism. I hope this dissertation sparks the continued development of laughing feminism as a feminist politics and a rich site for feminist scholarship.

Rights

© 2026, Heather Marie Buzbee

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