Dangerous Laughter

Thirteen darkly comic stories, Dangerous Laughter is a mesmerizing journey that stretches the boundaries of the ordinary world.

Thirteen darkly comic stories, Dangerous Laughter is a mesmerizing journey that stretches the boundaries of the ordinary world.

This essay collection is dedicated to intersections between gender theories and theories of laughter, humour, and comedy. It is based on the results of a three-year research programme, entitled “Gender – Laughter – Media” (2003-2006) and includes a series of investigations on traditional and modern media in western cultures from the 18th to the 20th century. A theoretical opening part is followed by four thematic sections that explore the multiple forms of irritating stereotypical gender perceptions; aspects of (post-)colonialism and multiculturalism; the comic impact of literary and media genres in different national cultures; as well as the different comic strategies in fictional, philosophical, artistic or real life communication. The volume presents a variety of new approaches to the overlaps between gender and laughter that have only barely been considered in groundbreaking research. It forms a valuable read for scholars of literary, theatre, media, and cultural studies, at the same time reaching out to a general readership.

Using Lacanian psychoanalysis, as well as its pre-history and afterlives, In the Event of Laughter argues for a new framework for discussing laughter. Responding to a tradition of 'comedy studies' that has been interested only in the causes of laughter (in why we laugh), it proposes a different relationship between laughter and causality. Ultimately it argues that laughter is both cause and effect, troubling chronological time and asking for a more nuanced way of conceiving the relationship between subjects and their laughter than existing theories have accounted for. Making this visible via psychoanalytic ideas of retroactivity, Alfie Bown explores how laughter – far from being a mere response to a stimulus – changes the relationship between the present, the past and the future. Bown investigates this hypothesis in relation to a range of comic texts from the 'history of laughter,' discussing Chaucer, Shakespeare, Kafka and Chaplin, as well as lesser-known but vital figures from the comic genre.

Comedy is a game that all humans play. There are big social prizes if you win, but it is easy to end up with custard pie on your face... or worse. Comedy can soothe our pain, vent our anger, make us feel less alone and provide the answer to life’s most difficult questions, such as, ‘What do you call a man with a seagull on his head?’* It’s a social glue but it can also be divisive, and the joke is on us if we don’t understand how it works. So, what are the rules? How does comedy do its magic and why does it matter? Join professional comedy writer Joel Morris on a hilarious journey into the hidden world of shared laughter where he reveals the mechanisms that make jokes work and what comedy can teach us about ourselves. Offering astute analysis of everything from stand-up to slapstick and sitcom to spoof, Morris examines comedic patterns, rhythms and dynamics to uncover the algorithms that secretly underpin comedy. Packed with gags and examples of comedy at its best – plus some invaluable tips on how to master that b’dum tish timing – Be Funny or Die is a fascinating investigation into how our species has developed and mastered this essential art form where laughter is the universal language and only the funniest survive. *Cliff.

The Bible in the American Short Story examines Biblical influences in the post-World War II American short story. In a series of accessible chapters, Lesleigh Cushing Stahlberg and Peter S. Hawkins offer close-readings of short stories by leading contemporary writers such as Flannery O'Connor, Allegra Goodman, Tobias Wolff and Kirstin Valdez Quade that highlight the biblical passages that they reference. Exploring episodes from the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament and both Jewish and Christian heritages, this book is an important contribution to understanding the influence of the Bible in contemporary literature.

In Dark Enlightenment Kennet Granholm provides a detailed look at the Left-Hand Path magic order Dragon Rouge in particular and explores the contexts of contemporary esoteric magic in general.

Laughter is often no laughing matter, and, as such, it deserves continued scholarly attention as a social, cultural and historical phenomenon. This collection of essays is a meeting ground for scholars from several disciplines, including historians, philologists, and scholars of social sciences, to discuss places and roles of laughter in history, in historical narratives, and in cultural anthropology from prehistory to the present. The common foci of the papers gathered in this volume are to examine laughter and its meanings, to reflect on the place of laughter in Western history and literature, to disclose laughter’s manipulative potential in historical and literary narratives, to see it in the light of the concepts of carnivalesque and playfulness, to see it as a reflection of hysterical historicizing, to see its place in comedy, farce, grotesque and irony, and to see it against its broadly understood theoretical, philosophical and psychological aspects. The book will appeal chiefly to an academic readership, including students, historians, literary and cultural scholars, sociologists, and cultural anthropologists.