College of Charleston Assistant Professor John Bruns’ published his first book, Loopholes, Reading Comically, in early June. The book brings together contemporary and classic studies of humor with the idea that comedy is not simply a literary or theatrical genre, but a certain way of disclosing or undoing the way the world is organized. Bruns argues against settled views of comedy as “relief” from serious andimportant matters, or as a “low” form of artistic creation.

“Bruns’ Bakhtin-inspired study does what so few even think of doing: it takes the comic comically – as a way of understanding life in terms of new opportunities, new ways out in a world that has no endings, no
resolutions,” said Gary Saul Morson of Northwestern University.

“Theories of comedy often falter in their attempts to map exactly where the nub of humor lies, yet this bright and engaging book argues that comedy isn’t a definable object so much as a mood, a tone, or a
way of thinking absent of objective qualities…it’s the essential next step in the discussion and a must for humor scholars everywhere,” said Andrew McConnell Stott of the University of Buffalo, SUNY.

Bruns is an assistant professor in the Department of English and director of the Film Studies Program at the College of Charleston.

Bruns received his Ph.D. in Film, Literature & Culture at the University of Southern California in 2002.
John Bruns can be reached at brunsj@cofc.edu or 843.953.4957.