Overview
The 1960s American hippie-clown boom fostered many creative impulses,
including neo-vaudeville and Ringling's Clown College. However, the
origin of that impulse, clowning with a circus, has largely gone
unexamined. David Carlyon, through an autoethnographic examination of
his own experiences in clowning, offers a close reading of the education
of a professional circus clown, woven through an eye-opening, sometimes
funny, occasionally poignant look at circus life. Layering critical
reflections of personal experience with connections to wider
scholarship, Carlyon focuses on the work of clowning while interrogating
what clowns actually do, rather than using them as stand-ins for
conceptual ideas or as sentimental figures.