Research

York Research Unit for the
Study of Satire (YRUSOS)

This research group is led by Dr Jo Waugh and Dr Adam Smith.

YRUSOS draws together researchers and satirists to historicise, problematise, theorise, teach and perform satire and satirical material.

Satire is an urgent topic with a long history. In a world of fake news or news that seems too incredible or too unpalatable to be true, journalists and satirists regularly make the claim that 'satire is dead' . Yet satire continues to emerge in professional, amateur, elitist and popular forms.

The York research unit for the study of satire creates opportunities for its members and the academic community at York St John University to lead a national conversation about the form, function and future of satire.

Get in touch

Contact group leaders Dr Jo Waugh (j.waugh@yorksj.ac.uk) or Dr Adam Smith (a.smith3@yorksj.ac.uk). You can also find us on X (formerly known as Twitter): @TalkAboutSatire

Research activity

Satire: Deaths, births, legacies

This ongoing disciplinary project launched with an international conference in June 2018.

Examining satire, parody, pastiche, and caricature, this project comments on the broader social function of satire, variously confirming, complicating, or condemning narratives of its decline.

This project examines moments in British literary history, from the eighteenth century through to the present day, when satire has been lauded as successful or condemned as ineffective, unnecessary or obsolete. It celebrates and interrogates the legacies of eighteenth-century satire, foregrounding the form's supposed deaths and rebirths to consider the extent to which reports of satire’s death have been exaggerated.

You can read more about this project on our satire blog.

Durational satire

Developed by Professor Dr Claire Hind, Durational satire will be a series of conceptual performances occupying different spaces. Performances will include:

The curated unit for small satire: An object-based installation at York St John University. Find out more about the satire unit.
Punch line: A 12 hour durational performance at Fairfax House.
Scratching satire: A practice led workshop to test, read, perform and share satirical material.

Smith & Waugh Talk About Satire

This podcast considers the form, function, future and history of satire.

Hosted by Drs Jo Waugh and Adam J Smith and featuring interviews with scholars and practitioners of satire, the podcast explores the satirical tradition from an increasing range of perspectives.Guests have included novelist Leigh Stein, comedian Janey Goldey and Spiked journalist and Sky News pundit Andrew Doyle (aka Titania McGrath).

It is available on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts and most other popular platforms.

SMITH & WAUGH PODCAST (ANCHOR.FM)

Contagious Laughter: Satire in the Age of Covid-19

In collaboration with Greenteeth press, Drs Jo Waugh and Adam J Smith are developing a project exploring the role of satire during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

Satire and Solidarity

YRUSOS members are in the early stages of developing a significant funding bit to establish an ongoing oral history project exploring the ways in which citizens use and engage with satire as part of their relationship with local and national communities.

Articles

‘“It just tastes better than other meat…”: Satire and Cannibalism after Jonathan Swift’sModest Proposal (1729).’ Published in Humour: International Journal for Humour Research (forthcoming).

Satirist as Physician. Published in Rewriting Medicine: Healthcare, Literature, and Culture, 1660-1832 (Cambridge University press, forthcoming).

Bridgerton: the real 18th-century women penning satirical periodicals to bite back at society. Published in The Conversation on 17 June 2024.

“Discourses of a less pleasing nature”: Addison, Steele and Impoliteness AfterThe Spectator. Published in Impolite Periodicals (Bucknell University Press, 2024).

"Such Very Slaughter-men": The Character of the Satirist in Early Eighteenth-Century Print. Published inConceptualising Character (Palgrave, 2024).

‘“Laugh when you must, be candid when you can”: The Concealed Resistance of the Radical Printer Winfred Gales. Published inPeople of Print: Eighteenth-Century England (Cambridge University Press, 2024).

‘“A Green Parrot for a Good Speaker”: Writing with a Birds-eye View in Eliza Haywood’sThe Parrot (1746). Published in Animals Satire (Palgrave, 2022)

The Prince – the great tradition of satirising the royal family is under threat as they become more 'human'. Published in The Conversation on 21 September 2021.

BBC comedy’s not left-wing: its audience has moved to the right. Published in The Conversation on 2 September 2020.

But is it art? Stand up comedy and the quest for cultural credibility. Published in The Conversation on 3 August 2020.

Spitting Image: a warning from the 'golden age' of satire. Published in The Conversation on 7 October 2019.

Titania McGrath: Twitter parody of ‘wokeness’ owes a lot to satirists of the 18th century. Published in The Conversation on 15 March 2019.

Brexit Britian is easy fodder for satirists: but they should learn from 18th-century masters how to do it properly Published in The Conversation on 8 October 2018.

Satire seems dead when the truth is unsayable: reflections on the many deaths of satire. Published in Words Matter on 31 May 2018.

Performances

'Sing Your Heart Lips Out' an experimental performance text by Claire Hind and Gary Winters written for an audio walk, inspired by Chris Morris’ Blue Jam (1997).

A copy of the written script is published in Hind, C. & Winters, G,. (2020) 'Embodying The Dead: Writing, Playing, Performing'. London: Macmillan International