I’m an Associate Lecturer at the Open University, and also a tutor for The Brilliant Club, where I run courses on ‘Taking Comedy Seriously’.
Recent work includes:
‘Slapstick and the liberation of objecthood in the work of Rebecca Moss’ Journal of Visual Art Practice, Nov 2025, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14702029.2025.2579417
‘Sex comedy: the new vulva and dick jokes’ EJHR 13(1), May 2025, https://europeanjournalofhumour.org/ejhr/article/view/978/835
‘Tim Renkow’s Jerk: Cringe Comedy, Disability and Political Correctness’, Open Library of Humanities 10(2), August 2024. https://olh.openlibhums.org/article/id/16348/
‘Kara Walker’s Fons Americanus: A Comic Anti-Monument’, in Comedy in Crises, Weaponising Humour in Contemporary Art, ed. Chrisoula Lionis, Palgrave Studies in Comedy. April 2023.
https://link.springer.com/book/9783031189609
‘Stooping To Conquer: The Utopian Vision Of Nicole Eisenman’, The Quietus, May 2021, https://thequietus.com/articles/30028-nicole-eisenman-love-or-generosity-review
Contributions to The Skinny magazine:
Fringe reviews 2025: Ayo Adenekan: Black Mediocrity; Soft Play: Just The Two of Us!; Alan Resnick: One Funny Hour; Su Mi: THISMOTHERPHUCKER; Old God; Cat Cohen: Broad Strokes; Trygve Wakenshaw and Barnie Duncan: Hot Chips; Jordan Gray: Is That a C*ck in Your Pocket, or Are You Just Here to Kill Me?; Degenerate; Sophie Power: CVNT; Amando Houser: DeliaDelia! The Flat Chested Witch!; Chloe Petts: Big Naturals; Toussaint Douglas: Accessible Pigeon Material; Luke McQueen: Comedian’s Comedian
Review of Sam Jay: A Proper Club Tour
Fringe reviews 2024: Amy Mason: Free Mason, Spring Day: Exvangelical, Rachel Kaly: Hospital Hour, Paulina Lenoir: Puella Eterna, Troll, Jessie Cave: An Ecstatic Display, Stevie Martin: clout, Jordan Brookes: Fontanelle, Stuart Laws Has to Be Joking?, Sarah Keyworth: My Eyes Are Up Here, Emma Sidi is Sue Gray, Sheeps: The Giggle Bunch, Elf Lyons: Horses, Eddy Hare: This One’s On Me, Eleanor Morton: Haunted House, Derek Mitchell: Goblin, Laura Davis: Albatross
Review of Joe Wells: King of the Autistics
Review of Jessica Fostekew: Mettle
Review of Urooj Asfaq: Oh No!
Fringe reviews 2023: Adam Flood: Remoulded, Horatio Gould: Sweet Prince, Frankie Thompson & Liv Ello: Body Show, Lorna Rose Treen: Skin Pigeon, Matty Hutson: Don’t Hold Back, Moses Storm: Perfect Cult, Freya Parker: It Ain’t Easy Being Cheeky, Crizards: This Means War, John Tothill: The Last Living Libertine, Lucy McCormick: Lucy and Friends, William Stone: Lofi Jokes to Study/Relax to, Bill O’Neill: The Amazing Banana Brothers, Courtney Pauroso: Vanessa5000
Review of Phil Wang: Wang in There Baby!
Feature on ‘Fixing the Fringe’
Interview with Catherine Cohen
Interview with Jessica Fostekew
Interview with Isy Suttie
Fringe reviews 2022: Crybabies: Bagbeard, Amy Gledhill: The Girl Before The Girl You Marry, Sam Nicoresti: Cancel Anti Wokeflake Snow Culture, Heidi Regan Gives Birth Live on Stage Every Night or Your Money Back, Sausage, Egg, Josh Pugh, Chips and Beans, Jess Fostekew: Wench, Sunil Patel: Faster Horses, Tarot: Cautionary Tales, Leo Reich: Literally, Who Cares?, Sikisa: Life of the Party, Chloe Petts: Transience, Ania Magliano: Absolutely No Worries If Not, Julia Masli: CHOOSH!, Shelf: Hair, Sian Davies: About Time
Feature on Best in Class, ‘Championing Working Class Comedy‘
Feature on Neurodiversity and comedy
Interview with Ciarán Dowd
Interview with Rosie Jones and Tim Renkow
Twitter and comedy
Fringe reviews 2021: Jack Docherty’s Nothing But, Rob Rouse’s No Refunds, Jay Lafferty’s Blether, Hannah Gadsby’s Douglas,
But Is It Funny? podcast, episode 4, season 2 (Feb 2022): Jimmy Carr, Taking Comedy Seriously, Murderville
But Is It Funny? podcast, episode 5, season 2 (Feb 2022): Starstruck, On Criticism, Phat Tuesdays
The Reviews Hub: Waiting for Lefty, JEW…ish, Living Newspaper Edition 5, Tales from the Front Line Parts 5 & 6, The Motherhood Project, General Secretary, The Process Trilogy, Testament, Is Now a Good Time?,
‘Is Comedy Art?’ panel discussion as part of the Beyond a Joke programme at Leicester Comedy Festival, February 2021
https://comedy-festival.co.uk/beyond-a-joke/
Journal articles:
‘Comic License in Contemporary African American Visual Art’, Comedy Studies, Spring 2020, https://doi.org/10.1080/2040610X.2020.1729487
“A little theatrical but mostly athletic”: The mutable erotics of Miranda July’s The First Bad Man‘. Cogent Arts & Humanities, Vol.3, No.1, 2016. DOI: 10.1080/23311983.2016.1256115
‘Miranda July: Interrupting the conventions of the personal’. Notes on Metamodernism, 24 Nov 2014.
Book reviews:
Stand-up Comedy and Contemporary Feminisms, Sexism, Stereotypes and Structural Inequalities by Ellie Tomsett, Comedy Studies, 15(1), 130–132. https://doi.org/10.1080/2040610X.2024.2323759
The Comic Turn in Contemporary English Fiction by Huw Marsh, 2023 C21 Literature: Journal of 21st-century Writings 10(1): pp. 1–6. DOI: https://doi.org/10.16995/c21.8854
Joking about Jihad: Comedy and Terror in the Arab World by Gilbert Ramsay and Moutaz Alkheder. Studies in American Humor, 2021, Vol.7, No.1, p.240-243
https://doi.org/10.5325/studamerhumor.7.1.0240
Humour. Terry Eagleton. New Haven: Yale, 2019. 178 pp. Studies in American Humor, 2020, Vol.6, No. 2, p.355-358
https://doi.org/10.5325/studamerhumor.6.2.0355
Humour in the Arts, New Perspectives. Edited by Vivienne Westbrook and Shun-liang Chao. New York: Routledge, 2019. 230 pp. Studies in American Humor, Vol. 6, No. 1, 2020.
DOI: 10.5325/studamerhumor.6.1.0221
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/studamerhumor.6.1.0221
Contact me at emma.sullivan@open.ac.uk
Humour in the Arts 