SIG Event: Talk by Dr. Raúl Pérez, “The Souls of White Jokes”

Dr. Pérez will be discussing his recent book, The Souls of White Jokes: How Racist Humor Fuels White Supremacy (Stanford UP, 2022). Dr. Pérez’ research tracks the use of humor from blackface minstrelsy to contemporary contexts, including police culture, politics, and far-right extremists. Rather than being harmless fun, a thing of the past, or “just a joke,” Pérez illustrates how the current widespread use of racist humor plays a central role in reinforcing and mobilizing racist ideology, solidarity, and inequality today. 

Dr. Pérez’ The Souls of White Jokes was a Finalist for the 2022 C. Wright Mills Book Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems, and he received the 2023 Mary Douglas Book Prize from American Sociological Association’s Section on the Sociology of Culture. 

Dr. Pérez is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of La Verne, and previously an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Denver. His scholarship has been awarded and supported by the American Sociological Association, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the University of California Center for New Racial Studies, the Working Class Studies Association, and the American Humor Studies Association. His research has been published in scholarly journals such as American Behavioral Scientist, Discourse and Society, Ethnicities, and Sociological Perspectives. His work has also been featured in various media, such as The Washington Post, TIME, and NBC. 

This event is sponsored by the CLA Scholarly Intersections, the Department of Sociology, and the Department of English.