Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature
College of Liberal Arts
Twin Cities
Award Year
2020
University Award
McKnight Presidential Fellow Award
No Monument Location
Death from laughter, female hysteria, and early cinema
Maggie Hennefeld is a feminist comedy theorist and international silent film curator. Her award- winning book, Specters of Slapstick and Silent Film Comediennes (Columbia UP, 2018) reveals the forgotten history of female performers in early slapstick film comedies. She is an editor of the journal Cultural Critique and co-editor of two volumes, Unwatchable (Rutgers UP, 2019) and Abjection Incorporated (Duke UP, 2020). She is currently writing a book about the history of women who allegedly died from laughing too hard.