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"Wit and humor History and criticism."
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Planet funny : how comedy took over our culture
Presents a history of humor, from fart jokes on clay Sumerian tablets all the way up to the latest Twitter memes, that tells the story of how comedy came to rule the modern world.
Book
Newslore
Newslore is folklore that comments on and hinges on knowledge of current events. These expressions come in many forms: jokes, urban legends, digitally altered photographs, mock news stories, press releases or interoffice memoranda, parodies of songs, poems, political and commercial advertisements, movie previews and posters, still or animated cartoons, and short live-action films.
InNewslore: Folklore on the Internet and in the News, author Russell Frank offers a snapshot of the items of newslore disseminated via the Internet that gained the widest currency around the turn of the millennium. Among the newsmakers lampooned in e-mails and on the Web were Bill and Hillary Clinton, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, and such media celebrities as Princess Diana and Michael Jackson. The book also looks at the folk response to the September 11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina, as well as the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004.
Frank analyzes this material by tracing each item back to the news story it refers to in search of clues as to what, exactly, the item reveals about the public's response. His argument throughout is that newslore is an extremely useful and revelatory gauge for public reaction to current events and an invaluable screen capture of the latest zeitgeist.
eBook
The language of humor : an introduction
\"Introduction: Much of today's communication is carried out through various kinds of humor, and we therefore need to be able to understand its many aspects. Written by two of the world's leading pioneers in humor studies, Alleen and Don Nilsen explore how humor can be explained across the numerous sub-disciplines of linguistics. Drawing on examples from language play and jokes in a range of real-life contexts, such as art, business, marketing, comedy, creative writing, science, journalism, and politics, the authors use their own theory of 'Features, Functions, and Subjects of Humor' to analyze humor across all disciplines. Each highly accessible chapter uses a rich array of examples to stimulate discussion and interaction even in large classes. Supplemental PowerPoints to accompany each of the twenty-five chapters are available online, taking many of the insights from the chapters for further interactional discussions with the students\" -- Provided by publisher.
Book
Good Humor, Bad Taste
This is an updated edition of Good Humor, Bad Taste: A Sociology of the Joke, published in 2006.Using a combination of interview materials, survey data, and historical materials, it explores the relationship between humor and gender, age, social class, and national differences in the Netherlands and the United States.
eBook
Wit's end : what wit is, how it works, and why we need it
\"James Geary explores every facet of wittiness, from its role in innovation to why puns demonstrate the essence of creativity. Geary reasons that wit is both visual and verbal, physical and intellectual: there's the serendipitous wit of scientists, the crafty wit of inventors, the optical wit of artists, and the metaphysical wit of philosophers. In Wit's End, Geary embraces wit in every form by adopting a different style for each chapter; he writes the section on verbal repartee as a dramatic dialogue, the neuroscience of wit as a scientific paper, the spirituality of wit as a sermon, and other chapters in jive, rap, and the heroic couplets of Alexander Pope. Demonstrating that brevity really is the soul of wit, Geary crafts each chapter from concise sections of 200, 400, or 800 words. Entertaining, illuminating, and entirely unique, Wit's End shows how wit is much more than a sense of humor\" -- Provided by publisher
Book
The Primer of Humor Research
The book is intended to provide a definitive view of the field of humor research for both beginning and established scholars in a variety of fields who are developing an interest in humor and need to familiarize themselves with the available body of knowledge. Each chapter of the book is devoted to an important aspect of humor research or to a disciplinary approach to the field, and each is written by the leading expert or emerging scholar in that area.
There are two primary motivations for the book. The positive one is to collect and summarize the impressive body of knowledge accumulated in humor research in and around Humor: The International Journal of Humor Research. The negative motivation is to prevent the embarrassment to and from the \"first-timers,\" often established experts in their own field, who venture into humor research without any notion that there already exists a body of knowledge they need to acquire before publishing anything on the subject-unless they are in the business of reinventing the wheel and have serious doubts about its being round!
The organization of the book reflects the main groups of scholars participating in the increasingly popular and high-powered humor research movement throughout the world, an 800 to 1,000-strong contingent, and growing. The chapters are organized along the same lines: History, Research Issues, Main Directions, Current Situation, Possible Future, Bibliography-and use the authors' definitive credentials not to promote an individual view, but rather to give the reader a good comprehensive and condensed view of the area.
eBook
Humour
Written by an acknowledged master of comedy, this study reflects on the nature of humour and the functions it serves. Why do we laugh? What are we to make of the sheer variety of laughter, from braying and cackling to sniggering and chortling? Is humour subversive, or can it defuse dissent? Can we define wit? Packed with illuminating ideas and a good many excellent jokes, the book critically examines various well-known theories of humour, including the idea that it springs from incongruity and the view that it reflects a mildly sadistic form of superiority to others. Drawing on a wide range of literary and philosophical sources, Terry Eagleton moves from Aristotle and Aquinas to Hobbes, Freud, and Bakhtin, looking in particular at the psychoanalytical mechanisms underlying humour and its social and political evolution over the centuries.
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The dynamics of interactional humor : creating and negotiating humor in everyday encounters
This title deals with the construction of diverse forms of humour in everyday oral, written, and mediatised interactions. It sheds light on the differences and, most importantly, the similarities in the production of interactional humour in face-to-face and various technology-mediated forms of communication, including scripted and non-scripted situations. The book draws on a variety of up-to-date approaches and methodologies, and will appeal to scholars in discourse analysis, conversation analysis, interactional sociolinguistics, pragmatics, ethnography of communication, and social semiotics.
eBook
The languages of humor : verbal, visual and physical humor
\"Why are things funny? How has humor changed over the centuries? Why don't political leaders like to be presented in caricatures? What do jokes tell us about ourselves? Why does slipping on a banana peel make so many people laugh? Featuring expert authors from across the globe, The Languages of Humor discusses various types of humor: verbal, visual and physical. The Languages of Humor explores many types of humor, and does so across a wide range of intellectual disciplines including sociology, psychology, communication, philosophy, history, social sciences, linguistics, computer science, literature, theatre, education and culture studies. Some of the contributors to this volume, as well as being academics, also have a professional background in humor which makes the book unique. This is research-led book offers a top-down analysis of humor studies\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Laughter in ancient Rome
What made the Romans laugh? Was ancient Rome a carnival, filled with practical jokes and hearty chuckles? Or was it a carefully regulated culture in which the uncontrollable excess of laughter was a force to fear—a world of wit, irony, and knowing smiles? How did Romans make sense of laughter? What role did it play in the world of the law courts, the imperial palace, or the spectacles of the arena? Laughter in Ancient Rome explores one of the most intriguing, but also trickiest, of historical subjects. Drawing on a wide range of Roman writing—from essays on rhetoric to a surviving Roman joke book—Mary Beard tracks down the giggles, smirks, and guffaws of the ancient Romans themselves. From ancient “monkey business” to the role of a chuckle in a culture of tyranny, she explores Roman humor from the hilarious, to the momentous, to the surprising. But she also reflects on even bigger historical questions. What kind of history of laughter can we possibly tell? Can we ever really “get” the Romans’ jokes?
eBook