The period between South Africa’s unification in 1910 and its departure from the British Commonwealth in 1961 was a momentous period of social change whereby South Africans of diverse racial, cultural and linguistic backgrounds strove with varying degrees of success to realize their aspirations. As the promise of an expanded liberal order turned to the brutal repression of apartheid’s first decade, this study argues that humor served as a primary means through which writers, performers and audiences processed the events of this era. Based on the contention that humor and laughter are intimately related to identity, this study shows both how these phenomena reveal Union-era South Africa’s contested social boundaries, and how a particular cohort of humorists across South Africa’s racial divide contributed to humor traditions that remain integral to South African national identity today. Starting with a comprehensive literature review and an examination of South African humor traditions pre-1910, this dissertation analyzes the work of the journalist-playwright Stephen Black as he sought to engage South African social ills, first through stage comedy and then through a pioneering tabloid newspaper, The Sjambok. Drawing on an array of both familiar and neglected sources, archival and oral, it then reconstructs the careers of humorists whose work was influenced by that of Black, a cohort that includes R. R. R. Dhlomo, H. I. E. Dhlomo, Herman Charles Bosman, Cecil Wightman, and Casey Motsisi. This dissertation is one of the most extensive investigations into South African humor undertaken to date, and has significant consequences for the historiography of South African literature and thought, the history of South Africa’s diasporic links, and postcolonial studies. A brief epilogue challenges scholars to further deepen their understanding of humor history at a time when debates over it loom ever larger in contemporary South African cultural discourse.
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