Joseph Boskin

Joseph Boskin (August 10, 1929 – February 16, 2025) was professor of history and ethnic and urban studies at Boston University. His interests included American social history, popular culture, ethnicity, conflict and violence, and humor research.

Education and work B.A., State University of New York at Oswego, 1947-1951 M.A., New York University, 1951-1952 Ph.D., University of Minnesota, 1954-1959 Previous to joining Boston University in 1969, Boskin taught at Minnesota, Iowa, and The University of Southern California.

Other professional associations included Director, Institute on Law and Urban Studies, Los Angeles, 1970-1971 and Editorial board of the International Journal of Humor Research.

April Fools Day history Calling it his "Andy Warhol moment," in 1983, Boskin unwittingly fooled Fred Bayles, a reporter for the Associated Press by providing an "explanation" for the origins of April Fools' Day. Ironically Bayles later joined the faculty at Boston University where Boskin was still teaching.

1997: Rebellious Laughter: People's Humor in American Culture 1986: Sambo: The Rise and Demise of an American Jester The book was written when Boskin was professor of history and Afro-American studies at Boston University. A book review in The New York Times was mostly positive, with reviewer's major disagreement being with Boskin's argument that the mask of "Sambo the entertainer" contributed to marginalization of African American culture: "But it is Mr. Boskin's insistence on the old image of blacks as crushed victims to which I object most seriously". 1979: Humor and Social Change in Twentieth-Century America 1976: Into Slavery: Racial Decisions in the Virginia Colony 1969: The Oppenheimer Affair: A Political Play in Three Acts (with Fred Krinsky) Editor 1968: (editor) Opposition Politics: the Anti-New Deal Tradition 1969: (co-editor, author) Protest in the Sixties, Co-editor and Author 1969 1972: (co-ed. with Robert A. Rosenstone, author) Seasons of Rebellion: Protest and Radicalism in Recent America 1976: (editor, author) Urban Racial Violence in the Twentieth Century 1978: (editor, author) Issues in American Society, Editor and Author 1997: (editor, author) The Humor Prism in 20th-century America