On Second Thought.

Burge's reminder of a forgotten figure is also a reminder that American politics in the nineteenth century was even more polarized and uncivil than ours, with nearly every one of the many newspapers of the time house organs for particular parties, many of them indulging in the kind of acerbic personal attacks Burge recovers for us. Editors: I greatly enjoyed reading Kirsten Leng's article "Comedy as a Practice of Care: Restorative Laughter and Reciprocal Empathy in the Pandemic", in which she argues that comedy can be understood as a practice of care, meaning that it has affective and nurturing dimensions.[1] She draws on the statements and comments of late-night comedians during the COVID-19 pandemic, who, although professionally paid, offered their comedy as a form of care for their audiences under difficult conditions in an attempt to establish genuine connection. Day also observes that feminist comics use anger to generate comic catharsis. [Extracted from the article]