Born in Manchester and raised east of London, Iain Ellis spent his formative years playing, performing, and consuming a heavy diet of punk rock music and football. In 1986, the young man went west to find his dreams in Bowling Green, Ohio. Instead, he picked up a PhD in American Culture Studies, writing his dissertation on 1980s American Punk Culture. In 2000, he traveled further west, settling in Lawrence, Kansas, where he currently teaches English at the University of Kansas and performs in his band The Leotards. You may also enjoy his books, Rebels Wit Attitude: Subversive Rock Humorists and Brit Wits: A History of British Rock Humor.
Features
Monday, January 12 2009
Rebels Wit Attitude: Nirvana
In this excerpt from PopMatters' new book Rebels Wit Attitude, Iain Ellis discusses how Nirvana were a rocking perfect storm of punk’s attitude, metal’s riffs, and pop hooks.
Monday, December 15 2008
Rebels Wit Attitude: Beastie Boys
In this excerpt of PopMatters' new book Rebels Wit Attitude, Ellis discusses how Beastie Boys were not afraid to play the enemy within, often mocking the macho strutting of harder rappers.
Monday, December 8 2008
Rebels Wit Attitude: Talking Heads
In this excerpt from PopMatters' new book Rebels Wit Attitude, Ellis looks at the Talking Heads' art school intellectualism, pop melodies, funk rhythms, and the abstract humor that made them outsiders.
Columns
Friday, May 3 2013
Comics-in-Chief: Laughing With (and At) the Presidents -- The Scathing Slice of the Satirical Edge
When America chose Nixon over Paulsen at the polls, it ushered in a president that many consider one of the most humor-challenged in modern history.
Friday, February 22 2013
Comics-in-Chief: Laughing With (and At) the Presidents - The Watershed Moment of Political Humor
Never before JFK had a president employed humor so concertedly, nor had it used against him so openly.
Friday, February 1 2013
Comics-in-Chief: Laughing With (and At) the Presidents - The Growth of Democracy & the Flow of Humor
“Greatest” and “worst” president surveys continue to reveal what is surely not just a coincidence: we have always and still continue to revere our wits in the White House.
Monday, October 15 2012
Political Humor and Its Diss Contents
Political humor brings a lot of joy and laughter into our often humdrum lives, but is our national laugh fest a good thing for the nation at large?
Friday, August 3 2012
Stand-Up! America’s Dissenting Tradition Part 3: The Bills of Rights, Hicks & Maher
Two sides of the same coin, Bill Hicks and Bill Maher are comedic patriots; leave (their country) they will not, nor will they leave it alone, for they persist at picking at their nation’s open sores of injustice, hypocrisy, and superficiality.
