(Working title)
18th-century satire certainly has a preoccupation with gender. As an agent for negotiating gender norms, satire serves as a kind of pillory in print form, punishing and mocking flirtatious coquettes or blockheaded beaux in the narrated world according to the enlightenment slogan prodesse et delectare. In my dissertation project, I plan to explore how wit and laughter constitute gender difference while also functioning as strategies of inclusion and exclusion for building consensus and shaping emergent public spheres in English and German-language contexts.