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"Joking"
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Lincoln tells a joke : how laughter saved the president (and the country)
A biography of one of America's greatest presidents, focusing on his use of wit and humor, and his love of language.
Book
“As Spirits of The Old Ones Dance, We Sing,” “Closing a Portal to Past; Opening One to Promise,” and “Rez Dogs Eat Beans”
These literary pieces by Gordon Lee Johnson accompany Juan Delgado’s interview with him, also in this issue.
Journal Article
Conversational humour and (im)politeness : a pragmatic analysis of social interaction
Conversational Humour and (Im)politeness is the first systematic study that offers a socio-pragmatic perspective on humorous practices such as teasing, mockery and taking the piss and their relation to (im)politeness.
eBook
Le vertige burlesque de Véronique Bangoura : la parenté dans Saharienne indigo de Tierno Monénembo
In his latest novel entitled Saharienne indigo (2022), Tierno Monénembo returns to his native country, Guinea, and to its history. The fortuitous meeting of a French woman and a Guinean woman, Véronique Bangoura, in Paris is the starting point of a double narration; on the one hand, the novel follows the narrative of the successive meetings of the two women and, on the other hand, it tells the story of life that the African woman tells the European woman, at the latter's request. Dragged into the whirlwind of her memories, Véronique Bangoura, in a quest for identity, reconstitutes an imaginary kinship, which first passes through a process of naming. As a writer, Monénembo, using a burlesque mode, situates this quest in an intertextuality based on the initials of Véronique Bangoura. This article will show how Monénembo, by giving voice to the victims of the Guinean dictatorship, advocates for a “living memory”, which would also be a literary memory.
Journal Article
Phaedrus' Double Dowry: Laughter and Lessons in the Fabulae Aesopiae
In his first prologue, the first-century Latin poet Phaedrus promises that his fables offer a double dowry, laughter and life lessons. This article explores the central importance of laughter for Phaedrus, who defines his fables as jokes meant to inspire laughter and learning—but not anger. Laughter in the fables is a mark of intellectual superiority, a safe way to teach lessons (even for the powerless), and a way to punish those who deserve it.
Journal Article
Irony, Deception and Humour
Mouton Series in Pragmatics (MSP) is a timely response to the growing demand for innovative and authoritative monographs and edited volumes from all angles of pragmatics. Recent theoretical work on the semantics/pragmatics interface, applications of evolutionary biology to the study of language, and empirical work within cognitive and developmental psychology and intercultural communication has directed attention to issues that warrant reexamination, as well as revision of some of the central tenets and claims of the field of pragmatics. The series welcomes proposals that reflect this endeavour and exploration within the discipline and neighboring fields such as language philosophy, communication, information science, sociolinguistics, second language acquisition and cognitive science. MSP will provide a forum for authors who represent different subfields of pragmatics including the linguistic, cognitive, social, and intercultural paradigms, and have important and intriguing ideas and research findings to share with scholars who are interested in linguistics in general and pragmatics in particular. To discuss your book idea or submit a proposal, please contact Odelia Ahdout.
eBook
Africa Starts at the Pyrenees
Located on the Mediterranean coast of Morocco, the Spanish enclave of Ceuta depends almost entirely on subsidies from Madrid. When the newly elected conservative government initiated a rigorous austerity regime in 2011, Ceuta quickly became Spain’s “unemployment capital,” and my fieldnotes started overflowing with stories of disorientation as personal life-trajectories collapsed and national narratives developed over four decades of modernization and Europeanization became untenable. However, my diaries also contain page upon page of informants telling jokes, sharing caricatures, and watching satirical videos mocking Spain’s political classes and, ultimately, themselves. Answering a call by Angelique Haugerud (2013b), this article asks what anthropology can learn from local jokers and tricksters. Following Karin Barber (2005) and Nicolas Argenti (2016), and reading Ceuta’s obscene humor as a form of textual practice warranting serious ethnographic investigation, I argue that tricksters, locally appreciated as excellent social analysts, have anticipated anthropological efforts to encourage lay audiences to rethink “the economy,” often considered to be an abstract, natural force. Indeed, my inform ants’ humor not only locates the crisis in human relations, but it also describes “neoliberal” discourses as an ideology used by the financial class to claim resources and redistribute blame. This article, however, urges caution when dialoguing with tricksters. The burgeoning literature on humor in times of crisis has tended to focus on showing that laughter is not merely a weapon of the weak, but a liberating practice that turns trauma into creativity, maintains solidarity, mobilizes political resistance, and is therefore central to social change. But my Ceutan informants often forget that tricksters are rarely the heroes they think they are. Their lewd jokes create conflict between the enclave’s inhabitants, hindering effective political mobilization and reproducing gender, ethnic, and racial stereotypes that raise methodological and ethical problems for anthropology.
Journal Article
Humour in the beginning : religion, humour and laughter in formative stages of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism
Humour in the Beginning presents a multidisciplinary collection of fourteen in-depth case-studies on the role of humour - both benign and blasphemous, elitist and ordinary, orthodox and heterodox - in early, formative stages of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and (late-antique) Judaism.
eBook
Hidden Lives : Exploring Social Norms and Cultural Practices Among Same-sex Attracted Men in a Chinese Urban Park
This article explores the social norms and cultural practices among same-sex attracted men in a Chinese urban park, challenging the prevailing narrative that these spaces are primarily used for sexual encounters. Through ethnographic research, the study reveals how these parks serve as vital community hubs where men form deep friendships, discuss personal issues, and share experiences. The park’s strict rules and norms facilitate diverse social activities, allowing men to navigate their identities and build a shared culture. The research highlights the use of humour and “joking relationships” as tools to ease communication and strengthen group cohesion. By examining these interactions, the study provides insights into the complex social dynamics and the importance of these spaces for same-sex attracted men in urban China.
Journal Article
Speech Play and Verbal Art
Puns, jokes, proverbs, riddles, play languages, verbal dueling, parallelism, metaphor, grammatical stretching and manipulation in poetry and song— people around the world enjoy these forms of speech play and verbal artistry which form an intrinsic part of the fabric of their lives. Verbal playfulness is not a frivolous pursuit. Often indicative of people's deepest values and worldview, speech play is a significant site of intersection among language, culture, society, and individual expression. In this book, Joel Sherzer examines many kinds of speech play from places as diverse as the United States, France, Italy, Bali, and Latin America to offer the first full-scale study of speech play and verbal art. He brings together various speech-play forms and processes and shows what they have in common and how they overlap. He also demonstrates that speech play explores and indeed flirts with the boundaries of the socially, culturally, and linguistically possible and appropriate, thus making it relevant for anthropological and linguistic theory and practice, as well as for folklore and literary criticism.
eBook