Laughing Matters: Professor Sabrina Fuchs-Abrams on Funny Women Inciting Change
Professor Sabrina Fuchs-Abrams has expertly triangulated women’s studies, humor studies, and literary studies to examine how women challenged the status quo in the 19th and 20th centuries—and has shared that expertise with Empire State University’s MA in Liberal Studies program for the past 20 years. The New Jersey native has serious New York expertise; much of her research focuses on New York intellectuals and literature, including her published book, “New York Women of Wit in the Twentieth Century.” Ahead, Fuchs-Abrams shares some of her literary and women’s studies acumen in honor of Women’s History Month.
When the video call connects, the rectangle enclosing a black-and-white-clad Fuchs-Abrams floods with brightness. The room is stark white, made even more luminous by the large windows on either side of the professor.
Was there a particular book, writer, or teacher that sparked your love of literature?
Fuchs-Abrams: My parents were both English professors, which was part of it. In high school, I remember writing my senior thesis on the figure of the American girl in the works of Henry James. That was probably my first deep research experience—again, looking at female figures, even though it was a male writer.
I’ve always been interested in strong female figures—intellectual women in predominantly male-dominated areas. I think that oftentimes, women who stood out in predominantly male contexts often had to mask their intellect, because it was perceived as threatening. One of the ways to do that was through humor, and that shaped part of my interest in women’s humor later.
What drew you to a career in academia, and what brought you to Empire State University?
Fuchs-Abrams: As I mentioned, both my parents were academics, and it seemed like a great life. Every seven years, my father would go on sabbatical, and we would live in a different country. It seemed like a wonderful opportunity to learn and share your learning with others.
I did my graduate work at Columbia and taught an American Studies course for adult learners who were returning students. I found that to be incredibly rewarding. I found that the adult learners who had chosen to return there, not going on a conventional trajectory, were so highly motivated and accomplished.
What does your research focus on?
Fuchs-Abrams: Currently, I work on women’s humor, which stands at the intersection of women’s studies, literary study, urban studies, and humor studies. I’m particularly interested in 20th century American women writers and women intellectuals and the way they used humor as an indirect form of social protest.
What first interested you about this topic?
Fuchs-Abrams: My first book, which was an elaboration of my dissertation, was on Mary McCarthy. She is one of the foremost female intellectuals among a predominantly male group of New York intellectuals in the 1930s and 40s. She was part of the “Partisan Review” crowd of that period, and she was a satirist. From my interest in her, I became interested in women’s humor more generally.
Perfect segue—what can you share about your most recent publication, “New York Women of Wit of the 20th Century”?
Fuchs-Abrams: I’m interested in looking at how women writers use humor as a masked form of social critique. Some of the early humorists like Marietta Holly, or Sara Willis Parton, also known as Fanny Fern, and Frances Miriam Whitcher, dealt with domestic subjects, but they were able to say things that would have been prohibited without the mask of humor.
Moving into the 20th century with the passage of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote, and with prohibition and the rise of the new woman, I’m particularly interested in this interwar period where women were able to voice their critique a little more overtly.
How did humor and satire allow them to challenge traditional spaces? Can you share an example?
Fuchs-Abrams: There’s a short story by Dorothy Parker called “The Waltz.” There’s a female figure who is highly intellectual—really, a stand-in for Parker herself—but she has to wait to be asked to dance because that’s the social protocol. And there’s this buffoon, awkward male figure who’s stepping on her toes when dancing. The story is told in a double voice, so you hear what she says to him, being obsequious the way appropriate feminine behavior would be. And then, you hear the underlying monologue that she has. With satire, it’s using exaggeration and ridicule to expose the absurdities of certain social customs or prominent figures.
Satire is particularly suited to women and other marginalized populations in that it’s often directed by outsiders—those excluded by race, gender, ethnicity, religion—against those in positions of power in the hope of reforming society or at least exposing its moral weakness.
What is the most surprising thing that you encountered in your research?
Fuchs-Abrams: It’s surprising to me how the focus has really shifted to stand-up comedy, media studies and other forms of humor, and away from literary humor. You could say pioneering women of wit set the stage for later, more contemporary comedians, some of whom do talk about Dorothy Parker, or Edna St. Vincent Millay.
I know it’s Women’s History Month, and part of the feminist project is to revive lesser-known female authors and figures, which is part of what I do in my book. You do get figures like Amy Schumer, Wanda Sykes, Ali Wong, Hannah Gadsby—a lot of these feminist comedians do hark back to this use of humor as a way of partly sublimating and partly indirectly voicing social critique.
How do you fuel your literary curiosity?
Fuchs-Abrams: Working with students is really inspiring. Many of the classes I teach are based on my research, so I teach courses on women and humor, literature of New York… So working with graduate and undergraduate students, when you use the word curiosity, their questions and interests are not always directly aligned with some of the questions I would have thought to ask. It pushes me in other directions and interdisciplinary ways of thinking.
Being at SUNY Empire, there’s no doubt that I’ve become more interdisciplinary in my research and interests because of the nature of the teaching that we do. Here, particularly in the MALS program, learning is more expansive, and that has really fueled my curiosity.