ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes ways in which punk and hip-hop cultivate pedagogies of comedic dissidence as means to encourage collective discussions of political and social issues. The authors describe how humour is used in subversive ways to highlight the political implications in taken-for-granted aesthetics through a redistribution of the “sensible”, where what is non-sense (humour) becomes sensible (felt in sensorial participation) but not necessarily sensical (making sense intellectually). Demonstrating the necessity for alternative pedagogies and conceptualizations of educational method, we analyze the humour and messages of two bands representing “hardcore” styles of their respective genres—Dead Kennedys, a punk band formed in 1978 in San Francisco, California, and Public Enemy, a hip-hop group from Long Island, New York, formed in 1982. These groups both used artful forms of comedic dissidence to deal with the challenges of an increasingly individualized, market-driven society in the aftermath of the Vietnam War.
