In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Toward a Theoretical Framework for the Study of Humor in Literature and the Other ArtsJerry Farber (bio)With a clearer understanding of the way humor works, we might be better able to give it the attention it deserves when we study and teach the arts. But where do we turn to find a theoretical framework for the study of humor—one that will help to clarify the (...) role that humor plays in the arts and that will help us as well to understand differences in the way individual perceivers respond to humor in art?A superiority theory of humor emerged in classical times and more or less held the stage through the seventeenth century; now, however, though an occasional attempt to revive it is still made,1 superiority theory is usually regarded as far too narrow in scope to be useful as a general account of humor. What are commonly referred to as "release" (or, occasionally, "relief") theories— and associated with Spencer and Freud—were for a time very influential, but are somewhat narrow too in their own way, and furthermore, as Noël Carroll puts it, "have the liability of presupposing hydraulic views of the mind that are highly dubious."2 Incongruity theory, which has been around in one form or another since at least the eighteenth century, dominates contemporary humor theory but is still widely regarded as not quite there yet. And so humor remains somewhat mysterious and elusive. Or not even that. It may be that most people, even teachers in the arts, bypass theory entirely and simply accept humor as a given: an unanalyzable fact of human life. I've sometimes wondered if it may be that we don't want to understand humor, either because we're afraid that this understanding will spoil the game or, just possibly, because we sense that, as a consequence of it, we may discover things about ourselves that we would prefer not to know.Is a well-founded, broadly inclusive theoretical framework for the study and teaching of humor in the arts achievable? I want to propose that it is if [End Page 67] we take incongruity theory a few steps further, integrating an analysis of the humorous situation (that is, what we perceive: the caricature, the witty dialogue, the bit of stage business) with an analysis of what goes on in the perceiver (the humor experience itself).A General Theory of HumorIncongruity theory, though clearly the front-runner these days, continues to be problematic, making too much sense for us to discard it, but not quite enough sense to get us where we need to go. Thus, Carroll concludes his recent overview of this theoretical tradition: "Though promising, the Incongruity Theory of Humor remains a project in need of further research."3 Reading this we may find ourselves wondering, just as we might about some writer or performer who's been on the scene for a good long time, how much longer this centuries-old theoretical approach gets to remain "promising."What have been the major problems associated with incongruity theory? For one thing, it doesn't tell us much about the affective dimension of humor.4 Neither does it satisfactorily explain differences in the way individual perceivers respond. The major weakness of incongruity theory, however, has been a failure to account adequately for all of those instances of incongruity that are not funny: for example, brainteasers, logic problems, and puzzles. One way of dealing with this problem has been to keep adding on exclusionary clauses until the category has been pared down satisfactorily. In other words, humor is based on incongruity, provided that we exclude situations that inspire fear, or are disgusting, or are perceived instrumentally, or are regarded primarily as a puzzle, and so on. But, of course, this is patchwork. What we need is a humor theory where stipulations such as these don't have to be added on, because they follow logically from the theory itself.It's been proposed repeatedly that the incongruous elements in humor are likely to be connected in some way, though some of the terms that have been advanced to identify this connection are unnecessarily limiting if... (shrink)

Background: Humor, both producing and appreciating, underpins positive social interactions acting as a facilitator of communication. There are clear links to wellbeing that go along with this form of social engagement. However, humor appears to be a seldom studied, cross-disciplinary area of investigation when applied to people with an intellectual disability, this review collates the current state of knowledge regarding the role of humor behavior in the social interactions of people with intellectual disabilities and their carers. Method: (...) A systematic review utilizing the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines was completed which aimed to explore the current state of knowledge and quality of empirical evidence relating to humor in people with intellectual disabilities. Following this, articles were grouped thematically and summarized. A comprehensive search of four electronic databases (1954–2017) and additional search strategies yielded 32 articles which met the final inclusion criteria. Results: Humor played a significant positive and negative role in the social interactions of people with intellectual disabilities. Research had investigated humor in the classroom and humor expression in different groups including those with autism, Down syndrome, Angelman syndrome, Williams syndrome and Rett syndrome. Few investigations directly studied humor appreciation and comprehension hence themes did not focus solely on humor production/appreciation. Humor comprehension was reportedly supported by gestures. Some groups with intellectual disabilities found non-literal humor (e.g. sarcasm, irony) more difficult to understand which may affect social relationships. Various types of humor were found to be appreciated. The role of humor in relationship development, social facilitation, creativity and stigma had all received some limited attention. Humor also played a role for carer groups in coping with and enjoying the caring role. Research varied in quality with few experimental studies and mainly quasi-experimental and well-conducted qualitative studies. Conclusions: This review revealed the importance of humor behavior in many aspects of the social lives of people with intellectual disabilities. Limited disparate research exists pertaining to humor in this group, suggesting the need for further robust research in this area, including more high quality primary research in the areas of humor production, appreciation, comprehension and stigma. (shrink)

One of many writers inspired by Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy, the German novelist Jean Paul Richter coined the term 'Shandean humour' in his work of aesthetic theory. The essays in this volume investigate how Sterne's humour functions, the reasons for its enduring appeal, and what role it played in identity-construction and in the representation of melancholy. In tracing its hitherto under-recognised impact both on literary writers, such as Jean Paul and Herman Melville, and on philosophers, including Hegel and Marx, the (...) collection reveals that Shandean humour is a Grenzgänger - a point of commerce not only between Anglophone and German discourses, but also between literature and philosophy.Klaus Vieweg is Professor of Philosophy at the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena; James Vigus is postdoctoral research fellow at the Department of English and American Studies, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich; Kathleen M. Wheeler is Reader in English Literature at the University of Cambridge. (shrink)

Humor, as a source of fun, provides panacea from stress. There are writers whowrite humorous stories, but few use humor as a literary device. Alejandro Roces isone of the few, but no literary critical evaluation is made about his fiction because heis more popular as Filipino journalist. Thus, this study, entitled “Humor in AlejandroRoces’ Short Fiction”, aims to ignite aesthetic stimulation by critical analysis toassess its literary merits. His fiction, “We Filipinos Are Mild Drinkers,” “Of Cocksand Hens,” (...) “Of Cocks and Kings,” “Of Cocks and Battle Cocks,” and “Of Cocksand Super Cocks”, as qualitative research work, leans on formalistic and mimeticapproaches to Literature. Consequently, the key findings illustrate how humordevelops an uncommon conflict of an inveterate gambler-protagonist because insteadof feeling burdensome of his struggle, readers experience relief and release of tension.Moreover, some collective satirized peculiar Filipinism include English speechaffectations, gambler’s inveteracy, Hispanic cultural attitudes and traditionalism.Hence, Roces’ characterizations and themes inherently reveal humor that satirizespeculiar Filipinism. For deeper aesthetic stimulation, this study should be comparedand contrasted with the fiction of local and foreign humorists. Keywords: Literature and Communication, humor, inveteracy and satirized peculiarFilipinism, fiction, content analysis, Philippines. (shrink)

Chapter 14. Andrea Timár engages with literary representations of the experience of perpetrators of dehumanization. Her chapter focuses on perpetrators of dehumanization who do not violate laws of their society (i.e., they are not criminals) but exemplify what Simona Forti, inspired by Hannah Arendt, calls “the normality of evil.” Through the parallel examples of Dezső Kosztolányi’s Anna Édes (1926) and Doris Lessing’s The Grass is Singing (1950), Timár first explores a possible clash between criminals and perpetrators of dehumanization, showing (...) class='Hi'>literature’s exceptional ability to reveal the gap between ethics and law. Second, she examines novels focalized through perpetrators and the difficult narrative empathy they provoke, arguing that only the critical reading of these novels can make one engage with the potential perpetrator in oneself. As case studies, Timár examines Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719), which may potentially turn its reader into an accomplice in the process of dehumanization, and J.M. Coetzee’s Foe (1986), which puts on critical display the dehumanizing potentials of both aesthetic representation and sympathy as imaginative violence. Third, she reads Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones [Les Bienveillantes, 2006], which can make the reader question, through the polyphony of the voice of its protagonist, the notions of narrative voice and readerly empathy, only to reveal that the difficulty involved in empathizing with perpetrator characters lies not so much in the characters’ being perpetrators, but rather in their being literary characters. Eventually, Timár briefly touches upon the problem of the aesthetic and the comic via Nabokov’s Lolita (1955) to ask whether one can avoid some necessarily dehumanizing aspects of humor. (shrink)

This article tries to defend the position that Holocaust Education can be enriched by appreciating laughter and humor as critical and transformative forces that not only challenge dominant discourses about the Holocaust and its representational limits, but also reclaim humanity, ethics, and difference from new angles and juxtapositions. Edgar Hilsenrath’s novel The Nazi and the Barber is discussed here as an example of literature that departs from representations of Holocaust as celebration of resilience and survival, portraying a world (...) in which lies, hatred and violence are still perpetuated. Because of its transgressive qualities, Hilsenrath’s narrative of the Holocaust as a satire with elements of black comedy can offer pedagogical openings for using laughter to interrupt normative constructions of the Holocaust as an unspeakable and sacred event that lies outside history, and thus beyond the capacities of human understanding. It is argued that laughter is an important modality for inviting deep thinking about the Holocaust, to move it from a transcendent phenomenon to an immanent event, situated clearly in the realm of human action and worthy of understanding so as to prevent it from happening again. (shrink)

In April 2017, scientists and science sympathizers held marches in the United Kingdom as part of a coordinated international March for Science movement that was held in over 600 cities worldwide. This article reports from participant-observation studies of the marches that took place in London and Cardiff. Supplemented with data from 37 interviews from marchers at the London event, the article reports on an analysis of the placards, focusing on marchers’ concerns and the language and images through which they expressed (...) those concerns. How did the protesters articulate their concerns and objectives, and how were these articulations used to build a community? The placards did not represent a clear, focused, and unifying message; they instead illustrated disparate concerns ranging from human-induced climate change, Trump and “alternative facts,” and local UK specific political issues concerning the country’s exit from the European Union. Our analysis shows that placards gave a playful and whimsical character to the march, with slogans displaying significant amounts of humor, often formulated through insider jokes, scientific puns, or self-deprecating appropriation of negative stereotypes about scientists. We analyze the march through the social movement literature and as a collective identity-building exercise for an community of scientists and sympathizers with long-term aims of establishing a louder voice for scientists, and experts, in public discourse. (shrink)

Professional boundaries are an important aspect of social work theory and praxis – yet it is an underexplored topic within the research literature. Research often explores specific types of professional boundary issue rather than exploring social workers’ boundary stories or boundary narratives. In contrast, this qualitative study explored UK social workers’ broader understanding and experience of professional boundaries. This paper will examine one of the research themes – Humour as a boundary breaker. By using humour, social workers were able (...) to break down the boundaries that often impede effective practice. Participants also used humour to build connections with service users, colleagues and other professionals. Nonetheless, there were various aspects of this practice that raised serious issues related to power, prejudice and discrimination. This theme is important to explore because of how relevant it was for participants’ practice and because humour is also an underexplored topic within the social work literature. (shrink)

: Humor seems uniquely human, but it has deep biological roots. Laughter, the best evidence suggests, derives from the ritualized breathing and open-mouth display common in animal play. Play evolved as training for the unexpected, in creatures putting themselves at risk of losing balance or dominance so that they learn to recover. Humor in turn involves play with the expectations we share-whether innate or acquired-in order to catch one another off guard in ways that simulate risk and stimulate (...) recovery. An evolutionary approach to three great literary humorists, Shakespeare, Nabokov and Beckett, shows that a species-wide explanation not only cuts deeper but in no way diminishes individual difference. (shrink)

On the eve of 1945, after the retreat of Admiral Robert but before the end of the war, René Ménil wrote an essay extolling humor as a quintessential literary mode of resistance and predicting that colonial authors would go on to contribute significantly to a literature of humor. This article seeks to clarify what humor means to Ménil by illuminating his engagement with Dada, the surrealist movement, Freud, and the concept of irony. In contemplating both the (...) essay’s poetics and politics, this article suggests that Ménil’s vision not only anticipated the Antillean literature to come, but also offered a precocious illustration of it. (shrink)

Drawing upon the literature on complementary fit theory, the purpose of this study is to examine how the dynamic tenure moderates the relationship between leader–employee congruence/incongruence in humor and employee innovative behavior. Data were collected from 108 leader–employee dyads from information technology companies in China. Polynomial regression combined with the response surface methodology was used to test the hypotheses. Four conclusions were drawn. First, employee innovative behavior was maximized when leaders and employees were incongruent in humor. Second, (...) in the case of incongruence, employees had higher innovative behavior when employees were more humorous than their leaders. Third, in the case of congruence, employees had higher innovative behavior when a leader’s and an employee’s humor matched at high levels. Fourth, dynamic tenure moderated the leader–employee congruence/incongruence effect of humor on employee innovative behavior. This study enhanced theoretical developments by considering the importance of leaders’ congruence with employees in humor for the first time. Additionally, the research results provided better practical guidance for effectively promoting employee innovative behavior. (shrink)

Health care professionals assigned to critical care are confronted on a daily basis with particularly trying situations. Their hard work conditions can become anxiety-provoking, affect their physical and/or psychological condition, decrease their performance and increase their absenteeism rate at work. To face this particularly stressful and sometimes depressing context, some professionals fall back on “gallows humour”, a sort of black humour with a morbid overtone, which is likely to shock certain people. Although gallows humour is very widespread, its use in (...) critical care is extremely controversial and most of the time reprimanded by professional orders. Based on the codes of ethics that govern them, professional orders assume that gallows humour violates the duties and responsibilities of their members towards their patients, rejecting its use straightaway. In this article, we contest the categorical rejection of gallows humour in critical care. We adopt a consequentialist perspective based on the study of scientific literature on the benefits of using humour in the workplace, to defend its ethical acceptability. By enabling us to be better prepared to provide care despite the tragic events experienced by professionals, we will see how the use of gallows humour can ultimately have a positive effect on patients. A consequentialist ethics is not only interested in maximizing the benefits of gallows humour but also in reducing the risk of harm to others related to its use. This important criterion will therefore lead us to define the terms and suggest certain conditions that must be respected for an ethical use of this important defense mechanism by health care professionals in critical care. (shrink)

This article examines a group of Song-dynasty biji 筆記 anecdotes featuring the Northern Song literary giant Su Shi 蘇軾 playfully engaging with Buddhist encounter dialogues. These religious accounts are well known for their riddle-like language and the baffling effect they create among their readers, prompting the question of whether they were read for humor. Previous scholarship on encounter dialogues focuses on the religious perspective, demonstrating that their perplexing language and rheto- ric serve pedagogical and monastic functions. By contrast, this (...) article explores Chan Buddhist humor from the perspective of the literati and vernacular culture by examining how encounter dialogues were incorporated in Song-dynasty vernacu- lar plays and literati storytelling. Focusing on stories that depict Su Shi’s playful engagement with encounter dialogues as a case study, this article reveals that an important part of Su Shi’s humorous image is inspired and shaped by Buddhism. It also shows that humor in these biji stories is contingent on the readers’ knowledge of Chan literature such as “recorded dialogues” and “transmission records”, which were popular among literati during the Song. The anecdotal materials preserved in biji suggests a mutual influence between Chan literature and vernacular entertainment during the Song. I argue that, in addition to religious functions, literary factors of performance and aesthetics played sig- nificant roles in conditioning the entertaining effect of encounter dialogues, par- ticularly when they were received outside of monastic circles. (shrink)

Health care professionals assigned to critical care are confronted on a daily basis with particularly trying situations. Their hard work conditions can become anxiety-provoking, affect their physical and/or psychological condition, decrease their performance and increase their absenteeism rate at work. To face this particularly stressful and sometimes depressing context, some professionals fall back on “gallows humour”, a sort of black humour with a morbid overtone, which is likely to shock certain people. Although gallows humour is very widespread, its use in (...) critical care is extremely controversial and most of the time reprimanded by professional orders. Based on the codes of ethics that govern them, professional orders assume that gallows humour violates the duties and responsibilities of their members towards their patients, rejecting its use straightaway. In this article, we contest the categorical rejection of gallows humour in critical care. We adopt a consequentialist perspective based on the study of scientific literature on the benefits of using humour in the workplace, to defend its ethical acceptability. By enabling us to be better prepared to provide care despite the tragic events experienced by professionals, we will see how the use of gallows humour can ultimately have a positive effect on patients. A consequentialist ethics is not only interested in maximizing the benefits of gallows humour but also in reducing the risk of harm to others related to its use. This important criterion will therefore lead us to define the terms and suggest certain conditions that must be respected for an ethical use of this important defense mechanism by health care professionals in critical care. (shrink)

Introduction: Laughter as an expression of human nature in the Middle Ages and the early modern period: literary, historical, theological, philosophical, and psychological reflections -- Judith Hagen. Laughter in Procopius's wars -- Livnat Holtzman. "Does God really laugh?": appropriate and inappropriate descriptions of God in Islamic traditionalist theology -- Daniel F. Pigg. Laughter in Beowulf: ambiguity, ambivalence, and group identity formation -- Mark Burde. The parodia sacra problem and medieval comic studies -- Olga V. Trokhimenko. Women's laughter and gender politics (...) in medieval conduct discourse -- Madelon Köhler-Busch. Pushing decorum: uneasy laughter in Heinrich von Dem Türlîn's Diu crône -- Connie L. Scarborough. Laughter and the comic in a religious text -- John Sewell. The son rebelled and so the father made man alone: ridicule and boundary maintenance in The Nizzahon vetus -- Birgit Wiedl. Laughing at the beast: the judensau: anti-Jewish propaganda and humor from the Middle Ages to the early modern period -- Fabian Alfie. Yes . . . but was it funny? Cecco Angiolieri, Rustico Filippi and Giovanni Boccaccio -- Nicolino Applauso. Curses and laughter in medieval Italian comic poetry -- Feargal Béarra. Tromdhámh guaire: a context for laughter and audience in early modern Ireland -- Jean E. Jost. Humorous transgression in the non-conformist fabliaux: a Bakhtinian analysis of three comic tales -- Gretchen Mieszkowski. Chaucerian comedy: Troilus and Criseyde -- Sarah Gordon. Laughing and eating in the fabliaux -- Christine Bousquet-Labouérie. Laughter and medieval stalls -- Scott L. Taylor. Esoteric humor and the incommensurability of laughter -- Jean N. Goodrich. The function of laughter in The second shepherds' play -- Albrecht Classen. Laughing in late-medieval verse and prose narratives -- Rosa Alvarez perez. The workings of desire: Panurge and the dogs -- Elizabeth Chesney Zegura. Laughing out loud in the Heptaméron: a reassessment of Marguerite de Navarre's ambivalent humor -- Lia B. Ross. You had to be there: the elusive humor of the Sottie -- Kyle Diroberto. Sacred parody in Robert Greene's Groatsworth of wit -- Martha Moffitt Peacock. The comedy of the shrew: theorizing humor in early modern Netherlandish art -- Jessica Tvordi. The comic personas of Milton's Prolusion VI: negotiating masculine identity through self-directed humor -- John Alexander. Ridentum dicere verum (using laughter to speak the truth): laughter and the language of the early modern clown "pickelhering" in German literature of the late seventeenth century (1675-1700) -- Thomas Willard. Andreae's ludibrium: Menippean satire in The chymische hochzeit -- Diane Rudall. The comic power of illusion-allusion -- Allison P. Coudert. Laughing at credulity and superstition in the long eighteenth century. (shrink)

Humor has been praised by philosophers and poets as a balm to soothe the sorrows that outrageous fortune's slings and arrows cause inevitably, if not incessantly, to each and every one of us. In mundane life, having a sense of humor is seen not only as a positive trait of character, but as a social prerequisite, without which a person's career and mating prospects are severely diminished, if not annihilated. However, humor is much more than this, and (...) so much else. In particular, humor can accompany cruelty, inform it, sustain it, and exemplify it. Therefore, in this book, we provide a comprehensive, reasoned exploration of the vast literature on the concepts of humor and cruelty, as these have been tackled in Western philosophy, humanities, and social sciences, especially psychology. Also, the apparent cacophony of extant interpretations of these two concepts is explained as the inevitable and even useful result of the polysemy inherent to all common-sense concepts, in line with the understanding of concepts developed by M. Polanyi in the 20th century. Thus, a thorough, nuanced grasp of their complex mutual relationship is established, and many platitudes affecting today's received views, and scholarship, are cast aside. (shrink)

This book assesses the adequacy of the traditional theories of laughter and humor, suggests revised theories, and explores such areas as the aesthetics and ethics of humor, and the relation of amusement to other mental states. Theories of laughter and humor originated in ancient times with the view that laughter is an expression of feelings of superiority over another person. This superiority theory was held by Plato, Aristotle, and Hobbes. Another aspect of laughter, noted by Aristotle and (...) Cicero and neglected until Kant and Schopenhauer developed it into the incongruity theory, is that laughter is often a reaction to the perception of some incongruity. According to the third and latest traditional theory, the relief theory of Herbert Spencer and Freud, laughter is the venting of superfluous nervous energy. Historical examples of all these theories are presented along with hybrid theories such as those of Descartes and Bergson. The book also features traditional explorations of the place of humor in aesthetics, drama, and literature. This is the first work in the last fifty years to include the classic sources in the philosophy of humor and the first to present theories by contemporary philosophers. (shrink)

It is feasible to deal with high pressure in entrepreneurship with humor. This paper studies the effect of interaction between entrepreneurs’ perception of social culture and entrepreneurial experience (including experience with entrepreneurial failure and current company performance) on coping humor of entrepreneurs with the sample of 171 entrepreneurs from Bohai Rim in China. Regression analysis revealed that entrepreneurs prefer coping with pressure with humor if they sense the favorable condition brought by social culture to entrepreneurship and their (...) business is currently performing well or if they perceive a friendly culture to entrepreneurship and had once experienced entrepreneurial failure. This study contributes to the literature of the theory of humor, the culture of entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurial failure. (shrink)

This anthology brings together extracts that come from a wide variety of sources and that illustrate Western thought on the subject of humour and laughter from Antiquity to Late Modernity. The selection of texts is comprehensive, historically representative, and original, and includes writings from more than 40 different authors.

Stanisław Dygat’s humour is an integral feature of his prose and the language he uses plays a crucial role in it. Flexible, fluent, abounding with original comparisons, flowing gently and with verve, not tiresome. Dygat feels at ease with Polish; and it shows. Reading Dygat’s novels one has an impression of wandering through unlimited space. This impression is largely due to his creative attitude to language, his skill in using its various means and features, even those from the “ancient” past (...) of literature. Some “ tricks” of Dygat’s prose are largely obsolete in contemporary literature, such as telling names. The writer performs a delicate balancing act between innovative ideas and stylisation or literary allusions; and he does it easily and gracefully. The text presents humour, the comic and verbal humour on various levels of the novel’s structure. The article starts with recurring narrative features of Dygat’s prose such as individualisation of character’s language; then presents: dialogues, digressions, aphorisms, key words, stylisation and literary allusions, phraseology modifications, telling names, onomatopoeia, situation description, metaphors, comparisons, repetitions and multiplications. The text closes with witty details of narration such as deminutives, augmentatives and witty “epigrams”. Humour is inextricably interwoven into Dygat’s language, but integral as it is, its role seems superior to other characteristics of his prose. Dygat’s takes advantage of the comic literature tradition and its old ideas. He is a master of parody and stylisation. The great raconteur can focus on each sentence or even word, without sacrificing the verve in dialogues or the dynamism in his description. (shrink)

This research looks into absurdity focusing on its etymology as well as its relationship with the concepts "sense" and "meaning", looks into the concepts of "context" and "decontextualization" so as to understand the nature of absurd decontextualization. Considering the different meanings of absurdity in literature, philosophy and humour, this research is also meant to provide a breakdown of the architecture of nonsense.

This article describes a team-taught environmental studies course called Animal Metaphors. Focusing on animal metaphors in literature and film, the course emphasizes various cognitive and perceptual biases that lead humans to place ourselves above and beyond nature, making us more likely to engage in practices destructive to the environment. Whereas the first iteration of the course underscored various ways in which humans are less rational or moral than we imagine, the new iteration shifted more of the focus to what (...) inspires and motivates humans, gives us emotional resilience, and best creates conditions for mental well-being as we cooperate and collaborate. This seemed an appropriate tack to take in an age commonly referred to as the “Anthropocene.” We thus continued to examine our status as evolved animals while also calling more attention to spiritual or ecstatic experience, music, humor, and the uniquely human ability for shared intentionality. (shrink)

Baofu discusses the future of humor, especially in the dialectic context of joking and laughing--while learning from different approaches in the literature but without favoring any one of them. He offers a new theory to go beyond the existing approaches in the literature on humor in a novel way.

The influence of leader humor on employee innovative behavior has been attracting increasingly more attention from various scholars and enterprises. Based on previous relevant literatures in the fields of humor, leadership, and innovation, this study proposes and verifies a model to examine the internal mechanism and boundary condition of the relationship between leader humor, work engagement, supervisor’s organizational embodiment, and employee innovative behavior. Specifically, this study introduces work engagement as a mediator in the relationship between leader (...) class='Hi'>humor and employee innovative behavior, and supervisor’s organizational embodiment as a moderator in the relationship between leader humor and work engagement. Then, this study conducts two separate questionnaire surveys on Chinese employees and their direct supervisors at two different times to collect the sample data. In total, 383 supervisor–subordinate dyads were collected. The results suggest that leader humor can promote employee innovative behavior. Work engagement can partly mediate the influence of leader humor on employee innovative behavior. Supervisor’s organizational embodiment of employee can positively moderate the influence of leader humor on work engagement, which in turn ultimately should account for positive increases of employee innovative behavior. The conclusions from the analyses above not only further verify and develop some previous points on leader humor and employee innovation but also derive certain management implications for promoting employee innovative behavior from the perspective of leader humor. (shrink)

On the eve of 1945, after the retreat of Admiral Robert but before the end of the war, René Ménil wrote an essay extolling humor as a quintessential literary mode of resistance and predicting that colonial authors would go on to contribute significantly to a literature of humor. This article seeks to clarify what humor means to Ménil by illuminating his engagement with Dada, the surrealist movement, Freud, and the concept of irony. In contemplating both the (...) essay’s poetics and politics, this article suggests that Ménil’s vision not only anticipated the Antillean literature to come, but also offered a precocious illustration of it. (shrink)

Disputing the common misconception that nihilism is wholly negative and necessarily damaging to the human spirit, John Marmysz offers a clear and complete definition to argue that it is compatible, and indeed preferably responded to, with an attitude of good humor. He carefully scrutinizes the phenomenon of nihilism as it appears in the works, lives, and actions of key figures in the history of philosophy, literature, politics, and theology, including Nietzsche, Heidegger, Camus, and Mishima. While suggesting that there (...) ultimately is no solution to the problem of nihilism, Marmysz proposes a way of utilizing the anxiety and despair that is associated with the problem as a spur toward liveliness, activity, and the celebration of life. (shrink)

Mixing passion and humor, a personal work of literary criticism that demonstrates the power of our greatest books to illuminate our lives. Why do we read literature? For Arnold Weinstein, the answer is clear: literature allows us to become someone else. Literature changes us by giving us intimate access to an astonishing variety of other lives, experiences, and places across the ages. Reflecting on a lifetime of reading, teaching, and writing, The Lives of Literature explores, (...) with passion, humor, and whirring intellect, a professor's life, the thrills and traps of teaching, and, most of all, the power of literature to lead us to a deeper understanding of ourselves and the worlds we inhabit. As an identical twin, Weinstein experienced early the dislocation of being mistaken for another person--and of feeling that he might be someone other than he had thought. In vivid readings elucidating the classics of authors ranging from Sophocles to James Joyce and Toni Morrison, he explores what we learn by identifying with their protagonists, including those who, undone by wreckage and loss, discover that all their beliefs are illusions. Weinstein masterfully argues that literature's knowing differs entirely from what one ends up knowing when studying mathematics or physics or even history: by entering these characters' lives, readers acquire a unique form of knowledge--and come to understand its cost. In The Lives of Literature, a master writer and teacher shares his love of the books that he has taught and been taught by, showing us that literature matters most because we never stop discovering who we are. (shrink)

A review of the literature in philosophy in the past 20 years indicates that relatively little has been written on the connection between friendship, intimacy and humor. This article is intended to begin to address the neglect of this topic among philosophers by focusing on some interesting aspects of the relationship between friendship, intimacy and humor. The author begins his analysis by examining the different types of friendships while highlighting the characteristics of the particular kind of friendship (...) that involves intimacy. The second part of this article discusses the concept of intimacy, which has not received much attention among philosophers. Next, the author takes a close look at the issue of humor while distinguishing it from both joking and laughter. He then moves to the heart of this article, which focuses on the question of: how can humor enhance intimacy in friendship? In the final part of this article, the author briefly outlines some educational implications that can be gleaned from the analysis of the relationship between friendship, intimacy and humor. (shrink)

Humorous laughter is related to the sublime experience in that it involves the transformation of a potentially unpleasant perception into a pleasurable experience. However, whereas sublimity is associated with feelings of awe and respect, humorous laughter is associated with feelings of superiority and contempt. This difference is a result of the fact that sublimity is an affective response involving an individual’s perception of vulnerability while humorous laughter is a response involving perceived invulnerability.

Santangelo, Paulo (ed.). 2012.Laughing in Chinese.Rome: Aracne Editrice. 472pp. €26. ISBN 97888 548 46203. This book of 15 papers is divided into four parts: humor in Chinese and Japanese literary works, examples of comic literature, the moral involvement of humor, and the psychology of humor. Santangelo provides a substantial introduction to smiles and laughter in the Chinese context and also to the papers in his book (pp. 5–28). This structure lends itself to a description and analysis (...) of smiling and laughing as both social acts and as manifestations of states of mind. An identifiable theme is the interrelationship between social acts (the sociology, culture or politics of situation) and manifest states of mind (the psychology of the individuals involved in the situation). (shrink)

In this thesis, I address the metaphysical question `What is humour?' and the ethical question `When is humour immoral?' Consulting a dictionary reveals a circle of definitions between `amusement', `funniness', and `humour'. So I split the metaphysical question `What is humour?' into three questions: `What is amusement?', `What is funniness?' and `What is humour?' By critically analysing then synthesising recent research in philosophy, psychology and linguistics, I give the following answers: x amuses y if and only if: y is in (...) a non-serious, non-threatened, non-goal-directed state. y simultaneously activates two incompatible interpretations of x via unsound logic. sufficiently increases the psychological arousal of y. x is funny if and only if x merits amusement. x is humour if and only if the function of x is to merit or elicit amusement. Similarly, I split the ethical question `When is humour immoral?' into three questions: `When is amusement immoral?', `How does immorality affect funniness?' and `When is humour immoral?' By using, and, I give the following answers: Amusement is immoral when the correct theory of normative ethics defines, or to be immoral. Immorality negatively affects funniness. Humour-types are not subject to moral evaluation. Humour-tokens are immoral when the correct theory of normative ethics defines them to be immoral. This thesis contributes to the knowledge of the subject in two ways. First, by critically analysing and synthesising recent inter-disciplinary research, provides a more precisely specified definition of amusement than that in the philosophical literature. Second, research on humour, across all disciplines, conflates the three closely related but distinct concepts of humour, amusement and funniness. By providing a linear sequence of definitions,, and avoid the conceptual confusions that commonly occur. (shrink)

In love with freedom, Diogenes was a philosopher who did not like being taken seriously and who never wanted to change the world. And yet, his influence has persisted throughout the centuries, from Francois Rabelais and Alfred de Musset to William Shakespeare and Victor Hugo.

Terry Pratchett's writing celebrates the possibilities opened up by inventiveness and imagination. It constructs an ethical stance that values informed and self-aware choices, knowledge of the world in which one makes those choices, the importance of play and humor in crafting a compassionate worldview, and acts of continuous self-examination and creation. This collection of essays uses inventiveness and creation as a thematic core to combine normally disparate themes, such as science fiction studies, the effect of collaborative writing and shared (...) authorship, steampunk aesthetics, productive modes of "ownership," intertextuality, neomedievalism and colonialism, adaptations into other media, linguistics and rhetorics, and coming of age as an act of free will. In all Pratchett's constructed worlds and narratives-from Discworld, to the science-fictional flat planet of Strata, from a parody of Conan the Barbarian's Cimmeria to the comedically apocalyptic Good Omens-questions of identity, community, and the relations between self and other are constantly examined, debated, and reshaped. Pratchett's worlds thus become ethical worlds: fantasies in which language always matters, stories resonate with the past and the future, and choices emphasize the importance of compassion and creation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Laughing at Nothing: Humor as a Response to NihilismWill SlocombeLaughing at Nothing: Humor as a Response to Nihilism, by John Marmysz. 209 pp. Albany: SUNY Press, 2003; $54.50 cloth, $17.95 paper.Nihilism has become a (relatively) more popular theme in academia in recent years. Aside from the revival of standby texts such as Goudsblom's Nihilism and Culture and Rosen's Nihilism, there has been a glut of books (...) in areas as diverse as economics (Ritzer's The Globalization of Nothing), theology (Cunningham's Genealogy of Nihilism), and theory (Clemen's The Romanticism of Contemporary Theory). John Marmysz's contribution, Laughing at Nothing, is a refreshing change inasmuch as he invites us to laugh at nihilism and, in effect, to laugh with him at much of the scholarly work on nihilism. Primarily philosophical in tone, Laughing at Nothing is an academic treatise on nihilism and humor, an exploration of contemporary American culture, and a plea for understanding in a hostile environment.Marmysz is determined, as few others are, to see a positive potential in nihilism. Although he never uncovers a "positive" nihilism, he is willing to accept the idea that nihilism may be a valuable cultural concept. In his introduction, he stresses the fact that most critics of nihilism "underplay the constructive and positive role of nihilism in both individual and collective human history" (p. 10). This book attempts to undermine such trite interpretations of nihilism; evident from his observation that, "too often scholars proceed to draw conclusions about nihilism itself on the basis of philosophies that are, in fact, very poor models" (p. 11). This is an important point, and one to which I will return.All exegeses on nihilism must include a history of the concept to orient the reader within the given intellectual milieu, and Marmysz's is no exception. Moving comfortably from late eighteenth-century debates between Friedrich Jacobi and Johann Fichte to contemporary theories by Michael Gillespie, Cornel West, Yukio Mishima, and Karen Carr, Laughing at Nothing guides the reader through the intricacies of the arguments in three brisk chapters without [End Page 449] ever sacrificing clarity. This is no mean feat given the task that Marmysz has taken upon himself: to summarize more than 200 years of history and avoid the pitfalls of saying that nihilism is an aspect of modernity is a significant achievement (and one for which I am grateful).For most readers, however, the most important part of Laughing at Nothing will be Marmysz's own definition of nihilism, which is essentially thwarted idealism: "The full impact of the problem of nihilism strikes only when an individual passionately desires ultimate meaning, value, and purpose, but believes those things to be out of reach" (pp. 84-85). There are thus two elements to a nihilistic worldview: an idealized desire for a better world coupled with a belief that this can never be realized—"the real world is denigrated in comparison to the ideal, and the ideal is believed to be hopelessly out of reach" (p. 85). This, for Marmysz, is the basis of a "nihilistic incongruity," upon which the solution—humor—is founded.After Marmysz's treatment of a history of nihilism, it is unsurprising that his discussion of humor is as accomplished, skilfully navigating theories of Kant, Freud, Bergson, and Morreall. Marmysz's treatment of "incongruous" humor is impressive, basing itself on the idea that "humor allows us to confront incongruities and, instead of being overwhelmed by them, to understand them in an unusual and original fashion" (p. 152). For this reason, humor creates "the capacity to make incongruities unthreatening and to interpret them in a manner that produces amusement" (p. 153). This is, of course, critical to avoid the potential problems of nihilistic incongruity. Through an analysis of jokes, and the application of different theories about humor, Marmysz demonstrates that the "solution" to nihilism is disarmingly simple: we must learn to laugh at ourselves. Marmysz writes: "Nihilism reminds us that humans are not gods, and that despite all our accomplishments and wonders of civilization, humans cannot alter the fact that they only possess a finite amount of mastery and control over their own destinies... (shrink)

This paper provides a defense of the thesis that God has a sense of humor. First, I sketch the four main theories of what it is to have a sense of humor that we find in the literature. Next, I argue that three arguments against the thesis that God has a sense of humor fail to convince. Then, I consider what one might take to be four biblical reasons to think that God has a sense of (...) humor and argue that none of them are convincing. Subsequently, I give three philosophical reasons to think that God (if he exists) has a sense of humor, that is, reasons that any person who grasps the concept of God should be willing to embrace. These arguments differ in strength, but I argue that, jointly, they provide us with sufficient reason to think that God has a sense of humor. Finally, I spell out three implications of the idea that God has a sense of humor. (shrink)

_Taking Picture Books Seriously: What can we learn about philosophy through children's books?_ This warm and charming volume casts a spell on adult readers as it unveils the surprisingly profound philosophical wisdom contained in children's picture books, from Dr Seuss's _Sneetches_ to William Steig's _Shrek!_. With a light touch and good humor, Wartenberg discusses the philosophical ideas in these classic stories, and provides parents with a practical starting point for discussing philosophical issues with their children. Accessible and multi-layered, it (...) answers questions like, Is it okay for adults to deceive kids? What's the difference between saying the Mona Lisa is a great painting and vanilla is your favorite flavor? Each chapter includes illustrations commissioned especially for this book. (shrink)

This unorthodox volume of related literary-philosophical essays is sure to ruffle a few feathers by making merry with the styles of philosophy fashionable today, and in each of the last four decades. Beginning with a strictly formalistic treatment of the relationship of perfection of form to truth of content in literature, Watson (author of the widely reviewed work, The Philosopher's Diet) comes full circle to a concluding essay in which the content of life is unraveled as a pig's meaningless (...) "tale." In between, the reader is taken on a Cook's Tour of hopping and skipping, meaning, seducing, dying, and dreaming in such alluring essays as "The Seducer and the Seduced," "Ape Dreams," and "A Pig's Tail." The chapters focus on one or more fundamental arguments so dear to philosophers of many stripes, but are written with an attention to style not found in conventional philosophy. Writing in a discipline for which a robust sense of humor applied to the pursuit of "serious" philosophy is apt to mean professional oblivion, Watson aims his wittiest salvos at the Dogmatic and Edifying Intent of popular philosophical objectives. He highlights the stylistic conceits and ambiguity that often turn quite ordinary statements into ponderous pendantics. Are these pieces parodies or not? Does Watson really hold the positions he sets forth, or is he making lighthearted fun? Yes! The Philosopher's Joke will amuse and delight, frustrate and annoy, but above all, it will make readers think. (shrink)

The traditional concern of the academic literature on the ethics of humor is to determine whether ethical considerations influence comic amusement or, in other words, judge the impact of ethics over aesthetics. For some, ethically questionable dimensions bear no implication for the effectiveness of jokes; for others, they do, but this group disagrees on whether ethical problems make jokes less or more funny. This article attempts an alternative approach and explores the occurrences in which the aesthetic reaction to (...) humor reveals a more profound ethical commitment. It asks: What are the conditions under which laughter resulting from comic amusement reflects the moral stance of an individual? Or, more simply: Can one judge a person's character based on what this person is laughing at? The article starts by showing how humor can legitimately be taken as representative of the individual spirit, continues by identifying the subsection of humor that can offer an affirmative answer to the posed questions, highlights the power dynamics at play within this subsection of humor to justify its characterization as “fascist,” and concludes by offering guidance on identifying fascist laughter. (shrink)

This book examines the revival of antique philosophy in the Renaissance as a literary preoccupation informed by wit.

In this paper, we show that God is portrayed in the Hebrew Bible and in the Rabbinic literature—some of the very Hebrew texts that have influenced the three major world religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—as One who can be argued with and even changes his mind. Contrary to fundamentalist positions, in the Hebrew Bible and other Jewish texts God is omniscient but enjoys good, playful argumentation, broadening the possibilities for reasoning and reasonability. Arguing with God has also had (...) a profound influence upon Jewish humor, demonstrating that humans can joke with God. More specifically, we find in Jewish literature that humor’s capacity to bisociate between different domains of human experience can share a symbiotic relationship with argumentation’s emphasis on producing multiple, contested perspectives. Overall, once mortals realize that figures such as God can accept many perspectives through humor, teasing, arguing, criticism, and in at least one case, even lawsuits, a critical point emerges: citizens should learn to live, laugh, and reason with others with whom they disagree. (shrink)

Aesthetic Pursuits is a new collection of essays from Jerrold Levinson, one of the most prominent philosophers of art today, focusing on literature, film, and visual art, while addressing issues of humour, beauty, and the emotions. More than half of the essays in the volume are previously unpublished.

Given Plutarch’s fragmentary piece on Aristophanes and Menander, a piece of Table Talk on almost the same topic and various attacks on comic poets scattered through the Lives, one might believe that Plutarch is a staid, conservative and humourless author. But several other instances in his writings reveal a playful, facetious, witty and humorous Plutarch. This paper will focus on the Quaestiones Convivales, which bear ample witness to this aspect of Plutarch’s personality and authorial technique. It will examine the ways (...) in which he introduces and describes the various interlocutors, discuss certain comments with which he tries to ridicule his philosophical opponents, notably the Stoics and the Epicureans, try to distinguish the various manifestations of Plutarch’s humour and finally suggest that Plutarch’s stance and attitude towards playfulness, comic situations and laughter may ultimately be affected, at least in part, by his allegiance to Plato. (shrink)

The Darwinian Revolution--the change in thinking sparked by Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, which argued that all organisms including humans are the end product of a long, slow, natural process of evolution rather than the miraculous creation of an all-powerful God--is one of the truly momentous cultural events in Western Civilization. Darwinism as Religion is an innovative and exciting approach to this revolution through creative writing, showing how the theory of evolution as expressed by Darwin has, from the (...) first, functioned as a secular religion. Drawing on a deep understanding of both the science and the history, Michael Ruse surveys the naturalistic thinking about the origins of organisms, including the origins of humankind, as portrayed in novels and in poetry, taking the story from its beginnings in the Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century right up to the present. He shows that, contrary to the opinion of many historians of the era, there was indeed a revolution in thought and that the English naturalist Charles Darwin was at the heart of it. However, contrary also to what many think, this revolution was not primarily scientific as such, but more religious or metaphysical, as people were taken from the secure world of the Christian faith into a darker, more hostile world of evolutionism. In a fashion unusual for the history of ideas, Ruse turns to the novelists and poets of the period for inspiration and information. His book covers a wide range of creative writers - from novelists like Voltaire and poets like Erasmus Darwin in the eighteenth century, through the nineteenth century with novelists including Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Henry James and H. G. Wells and poets including Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson and Gerard Manley Hopkins, and on to the twentieth century with novelists including Edith Wharton, D. H. Lawrence, John Steinbeck, William Golding, Graham Greene, Ian McEwan and Marilynne Robinson, and poets including Robert Frost, Edna St Vincent Millay and Philip Appleman. Covering such topics as God, origins, humans, race and class, morality, sexuality, and sin and redemption, and written in an engaging manner and spiced with wry humor, Darwinism as Religion gives us an entirely fresh, engaging and provocative view of one of the cultural highpoints of Western thought. (shrink)

To carry on reasoning in the face of the implications of skepticism is what Fred Parker calls “sceptical thinking.” Not to be confused with the engineered vacillation leading to a tranquillizing suspense of judgement, it involves the double perspective of someone conducting a life, believing and reasoning as we do, while acutely aware that the whole endeavor is, in a sense, untenable. If, as Sir Philip Sidney famously said, an imaginative writer “nothing affirms, and therefore never lieth,” then the dilemma (...) posed by skepticism might be less embarrassing for that kind of writer than for philosophers. The latter purport to offer tenets valued according to their truth, however variously defined; the former, on the other hand, create “speaking pictures,” or verbal imitations. Skeptically thinking imaginative writers can create speaking pictures of a life in which knowledge is unavailable though people must reason, believe, and act. In a famous letter Keats went so far as to deem a kind of ataraxy to be a condition of the highest art, adducing Shakespeare’s “Negative Capability... of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason”. Parker does not discuss the possibility that negative capability might conduce to the highest flights of literature. He is concerned with the unresolved tensions of skeptical thinking that he sees as complicating key works of literature in the Hanoverian reigns. For their authors and readers, the negativity of skepticism was “disillusioning and destabilizing” if not ameliorated by a humor like Sterne’s or an irony like Hume’s. Humor or irony arises from the oddity that skepticism is put in its place only when we give up and allow nature to reassert itself. Not heroic measures, but backgammon and making merry with friends prevail over doubt. Sometimes, when the confrontation with skepticism gives rise to the precept of following nature, skepticism can result in “a surprising confidence of assertion”. (shrink)