Studies in American Humor (StAH), a member of the Council of Editors of Learned Journals (CELJ), has published scholarly critical essays, review essays, and book reviews on all aspects of American humor since 1974.  The premier journal for scholarship on humor, StAH addresses a wide spectrum of American humor, past and present.  As a service to its audience of scholars and students in the humanities, especially literary, cultural, and media studies, StAH has featured  an annual review of current scholarship, “The Year’s Work in American Humor Studies,” since 1999.

Submission Information                                                                

Submissions of essay manuscripts between 5000 and 8000 words are welcome on any topic, theme, practice, practitioner, and medium of American humor. StAH values transnational and interdisciplinary approaches as well as traditional critical and historical humanities scholarship. We are particularly interested in publishing essays on the visual humor of comics and animated cartoons; varieties of ethnic humor (African-American, Asian-American, Latinx, and Native American); online humor; television humor (late-night satire  sketch comedy, and sit-coms); stand-up; vaudeville; and antebellum literary humor. One electronic copy of a manuscript should be submitted in Word or rtf format with documentation in Chicago endnote style following The Chicago Manual of Style (16th edition) to the journal’s online Editorial Manager portal http://www.editorialmanager.com/sah/; accompanying illustrations should be provided in jpg format. Additional details are available at our editorial portal and at <http://www.studiesinamericanhumor.org>. Authors are responsible for securing permissions if their accepted submissions contain copyrighted material beyond fair use.

The journal also invites individuals to send books for review; books and essays for our annual feature, “The Year’s Work in American Humor Studies”; and previously unpublished (or long lost) primary sources with short analytical essays for our occasional feature, “The Recovery Room.”

Essay submissions and other materials in electronic form for “The Recovery Room” should be submitted via the Editorial Manager portal at the address above.  Please submit other publication queries to Lawrence Howe, Editor of Studies in American Humor, at StudiesinAmericanHumor@roosevelt.edu. Books and inquiries about book reviews should be sent to David Gillota, Associate Editor.

All contributors must be members in good standing of the American Humor Studies Association (AHSA) at the time of publication. Membership information is available via the AHSA website: <http://americanhumorstudiesassociation.wordpress.com/>.