Robin Crigler

Visiting Assistant Professor of History

robin.crigler@valpo.edu
219.464.5057

Education

B.A.  The College of William and Mary
Ph.D. Michigan State University 

Biography

Dr. Crigler received his Ph. D. in African history from Michigan State University in 2021 and spent two years teaching at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania before arriving in Valparaiso.  He is a historian of Southern Africa by training, a particular research focus on the history of humor and satire.  At Valparaiso University he teaches world history and Africa-related classes, as well as in the VUE program.  He is currently teaching The World in the 20th Century, Finding Your Voice in Valpo Spaces, and Sports and Social Justice in South Africa, and looks forward to offering courses related to modern Africa, the history of humor and stand-up comedy, and the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in the near future.

His first book project, Inevitable Satirists: A History of South African Humor and Satire, 1905-1965, traces the ways conflicts over humor and joking reflects broader struggles for racial and cultural inclusion waged by multiple groups in 20th century South Africa.  As a visiting research fellow at the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Studies, he has conducted additional research towards a biography of the apartheid-era journalist and satirist Casey Motsisi, as well as on stand-up comedy and online humor in the present day.  He occasionally writes for South African media outlets like Daily Maverick and LitNet, and his work has been published in African Studies, the African Studies Review, English in Africa, the South African Theatre Journal, and African Arts.

Selected Publications

“‘Guys, We Are Called for a Family Meeting’: Humor, Family Metaphor, and the COVID-19 Pandemic in South Africa,” in Humor as Social Critique: Widening the African Perspective, eds. Jennalee Donian and Andrea Hurst (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, forthcoming 2024).

“On the Beat: Black Humor in South Africa, 1943-1963,” English in Africa 50.1 (2023)

49-72. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/eia.v50i1.3

“‘Then…Horror…Horror’: Laughter, Terror, and Rebellion in the Unpublished Plays of

H. I. E. Dhlomo,” African Studies 81.2 (2022), 211-228. DOI: https://doi.org/

10.1080/00020184.2022.2142763

“There’s No Such Thing As ‘Too Soon’ Here: Taking Stock of South Africa’s Comedy

Boom,” in Stand-Up Comedy in Africa: Humour in Popular Languages and Media, ed.

Izuu Nwankwọ (Stuttgart, Germany: Ibidem Press, 2022), 235-251.