About Beck

Beck Krefting is a Professor in the American Studies Department and Director of the Center for Leadership, Teaching, and Learning. She is affiliate faculty to Gender Studies, Black Studies, Intergroup Relations, and Media and Film Studies at Skidmore College. Her monograph, All Joking Aside: American Humor and Its Discontents (Johns Hopkins UP), charts the history and economy of “charged humor” or stand-up comedy aimed at social justice. She is a contributing author to edited collections some of which include: Hysterical!: Women in American Comedy (University of Texas Press, 2017), Transgressive Humor of American Women Writers (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), The Joke Is On Us: Political Comedy in (Late) Neoliberal Times (Lexington Books, 2019), Ethics in Comedy: Essays on Crossing the Line (McFarland, 2020),Taking a Stand: American Stand-up Comedians as Public Intellectuals (University of Mississippi Press, 2021), and Punching Up: Stand-Up Comedy Speaking Truth to Power (Routledge, 2022). You can read about comedy’s role in #MeToo and Black Lives Matter Movements in a special issue published in Contemporary Political Theory (June 2021). She has published widely on Tasmanian comedian Hannah Gadsby, including in special issues in the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies (2019), Studies in American Humor (2019), and in the European Journal of American Studies (2024).Most recent publications include a foreword for Politics of Recognition and Representation in Indian Stand-Up (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024), and chapters in the Cambridge Companion to Stand-Up Comedy (2024) and the The Oxford Handbook of Screen Comedy (2025). Beck has been invited to speak about her research at colleges and universities domestically and internationally, most recently at universities in Germany and Hungary. Her current book project is tentatively titled: When Comedy Kills: Racialized and Gendered Violence in the Wake of Laughter.

Recent Publications

"The History of Moroccan Stand-Up Comedy"
In Punching Up in Stand-Up Comedy: Speaking Truth to Power, edited by Rashi Bhargava and Richa Chilana. London: Routledge, 2022
“Minority Report: Joking about the Other."
In Ethics in Comedy: Essays on Crossing the Line, edited by Steven Benko, 89-98. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., 2020.
“Comedy’s Ideological Kerfuffles: From #MeToo to Black Lives Matter.”
Contemporary Political Theory. Special Issue: The Political Force of the Comedic. Vol. 20, no. 2 (June 2021): 419-446.

Education

Ph.D., 2010

American Studies
University of Maryland, College Park
Fields: feminist comedy studies, performance studies, visual/popular culture, women’s history, cultural studies and studies in race/ethnicity, gender, disability, class and sexuality

M.A., 2004

Women's Studies
Ohio State University

B.A., 2001

English and Psychology
University of Alabama in Huntsville

Academic Appointments

Director, Center for Leadership, Teaching, and Learning

Skidmore College
2022 - Present

Full Professor, American Studies Department

Skidmore College
2022 - Present

Chair, AMERICAN STUDIES DEPARTMENT

Skidmore College
2018 - 2021

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, AMERICAN STUDIES DEPARTMENT

Skidmore College
2017 - 2022

London FYE Program Director

Skidmore College
2017

DIRECTOR OF MEDIA AND FILM STUDIES PROGRAM

Skidmore College
2015 - 2017

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, AMERICAN STUDIES DEPARTMENT

Skidmore College
2011 - 2017

VISITING ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, American Studies Department

Skidmore College
2010 - 2011

Instructor

University of Maryland, College Park
2004 - 2010

Research Assistant/Program Coordinator, African-American Studies

University of Maryland
2006 - 2010

Administrative Assistant, Art Gliner Center for Humor Studies

University of Maryland
2006 - 2010

Instructor

Ohio State University
2003 - 2004

Research Assistant, Professor Ruby Tapia

Ohio State University
2002

Research Assistant, Women’s Studies Resource Center

University of Alabama in Huntsville
2000-2001

Honors, Grants, and Awards