Events

We organise various events throughout the year, including seminars, conferences and pop-up shops.

Our events are ideal for people interested in finding out more about our research.

Upcoming events

• 31 January 2019 - Sadia Habib
• 28 February 2019 – Sarah Neal
• 28 March 2019 – Dr Sarah Ilott
• 23 May 2019 – Coretta Phillips
• 20 June 2019 – Gundi Knies

Dr Sarah Ilott - Encounters with the Neighbour in 1970s’ British Multicultural Comedy

12:00 - 13:00 28th March 2019

“If you don’t shut up, I’ll come and move in next door to you!” Such was the frequent response to audience heckles made by Britain’s first well-known black comedian, Charlie Williams. His retort appropriated racist rhetoric of the time, in which the black neighbour was frequently mobilised as an object of fear, threatening the imagined homogeneity of formerly white communities. What Williams’s response to heckles exemplifies is a negotiation of a complex set of power relations informed both by the mechanics of the triadic relationship between Teller, Audience and Butt of a joke and by the social context shaping relationships between blacks and whites in a systemically racist society. With reference to this context, I explore the mobilisation of the figure of the black neighbour in 1970s’ comedy as a means of commenting upon and critiquing British multicultural discourse of the time through a consideration of popular and mainstream sitcoms.

Dr Sarah Ilott is Senior Lecturer in Literature and Film at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her main research and teaching interests are in postcolonialism and popular genres, particularly comedy and the gothic.

• Page 1