Humour Studies

Facing charges of witchery, Apuleius defends himself by mentioning the name of the African village where one of his accusers, Sicinius Aemilianus, lives. The article begins with a summary of what should be known about the word (spelling, etymology, grammatical status) as well as the place it refers to.  It goes on to show how the utterance of the name is, in fact, used as a counterattack that aims to invalidate the charge of barbarism that faces the accused. The word, which is generally analyzed as a stroke of irony, covers though a complex game on the pronunciation of the accuser whose Punic accent is presented derisively, rather,  as a claim to the mastery of Attic Greek.This subtle game involves  making reference to authors brought back into fashion in the second century (Plautus, Catullus). In the end,  the paper  attempts to put into perspective this game on the  pronunciation of Sicinius Aemilianus in a reflection on the cultural identity of the sophist, who clearly rejects the Punic,  fetishizes Latin and carefully conceals his vernacular native language, the Libyan.

Political movements and personalities have been given nicknames in Zimbabwe.
Through an analysis of nicknames used on social and print media as well as in
popular music, this paper argues that nicknames describe physical appearances,
character traits and also utterances they make. Through a close examination of
nicknames given to several politicians and political movements from postindependent
Zimbabwe, this paper argues that these names and naming practices
achieve a certain number of objectives. Initially, it allows citizens to discuss
political figures particularly against the background where some politicians such
as the President cannot be easily spoken about. Moreover, the fluidity of nicknames
allows for a ridiculing of politicians especially when they do not live up to the
offices they hold. Drawing on Mehrabian and Piercy’s (1993) theoretical work on
nicknames, this paper concludes that nicknames can be viewed as what James
Scott (1985) terms “weapons of the weak” given that they have a “hidden
transcript” that make it possible for simple citizens to resist, oppose and challenge
those in power.

Punk. The sound of the streets, the music of protest, the shouts and screams of the disadvantaged and oppressed, the anguished howl of the underdog, the unclean and the unworthy. Political, agitational, provocative, subversive, awkward, uncompromising, angry and aggressive. Descriptions and definitions of punk – the subculture, the music, the fashion, the lifestyle, the language and the politics – inevitably revolve around stereotypes and generalizations. Consensus, where it can be found, tends to exemplify those same regularly repeated clichés, and important elements become further hidden from view. The use of humour in punk – lyrically, within musical phrasing, song construction and live performance and in the graphic language of punk sleeves, fanzines and posters – is often overlooked. This article comprises two parts. This first part seeks to outline the ways in which humour – through rhetorical codes and strategies including satire, pun, metaphor and metonymy, hyperbole, invective, irony, sarcasm, allegory, exaggeration, parody, repetition, self-deprecation, profanity and the embrace of the absurd or ridiculous were and are central to an understanding of punk language and practice. Within part two of this article, to be published in Punk & Post Punk, further emphasis will be placed on the visual identity of punk and hardcore groups, and on the strategies employed by designers to reflect and support punk’s satirical core.

Les recueils de « rencontres », « reparties » et « apophtegmes » du roi de France Henri IV compilés entre les années 1580 et 1660 témoignent de la réputation de rex facetus attachée au premier Bourbon. Cette communication entend replacer ces collections dans l’histoire des pratiques de compilation et l’histoire des usages (notamment politiques et mémoriels) des paroles mémorables du prince à la Renaissance et au Grand siècle. Une césure est repérable dans la documentation autour des années 1620-1630. Jusque-là, la circulation des bons mots du prince était essentiellement orale et manuscrite, comme l’attestent les Journaux-registres de Pierre de l’Estoile. Ce dernier compile sur le vif les saillies du roi dans une démarche militante, qui témoigne de sa sensibilité royaliste et anti-ligueuse. Après la mort du prince, la publication de chroniques donne accès aux « particularités » du règne à un public élargi : une nouvelle génération de compilateurs utilise ces sources imprimées pour recueillir et rassembler les bons mots du prince. Les témoignages documentaires sont nombreux entre 1620 et 1660, et l’on observe une diversification des fonctions attribuées aux recueils : selon les cas, il s’agit de divertir et chasser la mélancolie, enseigner une langue étrangère, célébrer la mémoire et les vertus du roi défunt, instruire et édifier le prince, ou encore nourrir une honnête curiosité pour les particularités de l’histoire de France et de ses grands hommes. Ainsi, un même objet documentaire (le recueil de bons mots), issu de méthodes de compilation similaires, peut remplir des fonctions variées en fonction du medium utilisé (manuscrit ou imprimé), du public visé et de l’objectif assigné au recueil.

Traditionally, positive psychology (PP) considers humour as one of 24 character strengths and associates it with the core virtue of transcendence, a view perpetuated in Second Wave PP. We debate the need for a wider conceptualisation of humour and a more pragmatic recognition of its benefits and applications within the framework of Third Wave PP. Anecdotal and observational findings relating to the use of humour during the Covid-19 pandemic are considered. We draw on empirical research revealing the diverse benefits of humour and laughter in different cultural settings, including during lockdown. Using examples, including Covid-19 humour, we contend that the depiction of beneficial humour in PP is incomplete, for example, it relates not only to transcendence but to all six core virtues, and misleading as it may not necessarily relate to any. A more practical and broader depiction of humour within Third Wave PP would be helpful, including emphasising the potential of multiple character strengths to support humour development. In particular, we highlight the need for laughter, currently viewed as a by-product of humour within PP, to play a more prominent role. Widening the portrayal of humour and laughter in PP will be helpful to value and harness their individual, and joint, benefits and applications. In this chapter, we call for Third Wave PP to encourage new research directions by embracing the complexity of humour as 1) an interlinked character strength; 2) associated to all core virtues; 3) benefitting overall personal development; and 4) differentiated from but co-equal to laughter.

In modern and contemporary literature and in art in general, humour is perceived as a social feature, usually derived from undesired or unconformist behaviour, frequently even related to the
unconscious. It is attributed to humans, rather than to animals or objects and, as pointed out by
Bergson, there are some suggestions, that humans are animals which laugh. Also, Montaigne,
Flaubert and Derrida, among others, implied an inverse possibility, that of animals laughing at us.
Humour could undoubtedly be seen as a feature with important cultural, and/or cathartic impact.
This conference undertakes to explore the anomalies that humour challenges by opposing the
conventions and tradition, and/or political power or by overzealously observing the common ground rules. The conference is interested in the comic expressed in language and created by language, in various manifestations of humour, and especially in finding out if the comic exists outside of what is strictly defined as human (posthuman).
The conference shall challenge some traditional theories (Freud, Bergson, Pirandello etc.) and will welcome proposals which differentiate geographically where/if possible, ranges or types of humour, with special emphasis on the Mediterranean basin, seen as an area characterized by a special, hard to define, yet intuitively perceived type of humour. The conference is interested in answering thequestion if there are any literary and cultural patterns in highlighting the comic as opposed to solemn, and sober.
The conference welcomes submissions exploring any and all questions concerned with humour, and all its manifestations and features. The conference is particularly interested in finding out more about cultural implications and reflections of humour in literature, primarily in Mediterranean authors.

“Comedy is about timing, son”. È questa la battuta con cui un David Lynch particolarmente fuori dal tempo, nei panni dello stravagante producer televisivo Jack Dahl, tormenta il povero Louis C.K., alle prese con lo sforzo immane di “allenarsi” per la puntata pilota di un late night con cui potrebbe prendere il posto di David Letterman. Siamo tra l’agosto e il settembre 2012, e su FX va in onda, quasi alla fine della sua terza stagione, una trilogia di puntate di Louie che sembra quasi fantascienza.  [...]

The first part of this study, published in Punk & Post Punk 2.2, positioned punk within an historical and cultural context in relation to humour, comedy, satire, profanity and the absurd. This second part of the article places further emphasis on the visual identity of punk, post punk and hardcore groups, and on the graphic strategies employed by designers to reflect an underlying satirical core at the heart of the subculture.

This essay examines one aspect of Giuseppe Arcimboldo's portraiture: His genre depictions where he expands the art of illusionism or magic visualization into grilli (intellectual whims) and teste composte (composite heads). These images of reversible portraits of genre scenes, caricatural conceits, and visual puns are seen in The Cook or The Chef reversed as The Bowl of Meats of 1570 at the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm; The Vegetable Gardener reversed as The Bowl of Vegetables of 1590 at the Museo Civico "Ala Ponzone", Cremona; and Il Frutaio, The Fruit Vendor reversed as The Basket of Fruits of 1591, at the French & Company Gallery in New York. In his imagery, Arcimboldo focuses on the paradoxical meaning of objects, "what if?" adding a sense of ambiguity and mystery to his art. Is Arcimboldo teasing the viewer with a Mannerist flare, or is he composing or implying another type of intellectual conceit? Ultimately, Arcimboldo invents a new type of genre: the emblematic humorous portrait.

This project will bring together scholars from a variety of disciplines (including sociology, cultural studies, neuroscience, film and media studies) to investigate the experience of cringe as a key symptom of the contemporary cultural landscape. Cringe humour and other cringeworthy experiences across the media articulate a deeply-felt discomfort, one that is linked to the inability to successfully adopt political correctness, and to changing attitudes in the cultural mainstream. The experience of cringe involves the inability to extricate yourself (or to look away) from unpleasant situations, resulting in feelings of vicarious shame (Fremdschämen), for example when watching diplomatic blunders committed by prominent statesmen, uncomfortable ‘dare you’ challenges on social media platforms, and the kind of ‘unstable jokes’ to be found in transgressive comedy formats that involve protected groups like ethnic minorities and disabled people, even though the targets of the jokes are not al-ways clear.
The symposium will approach the phenomenon of painful laughter and cringing in three thematic sections: (I) psychology and affect, (II) the mediality of cringe (where ‘reality’ aesthetics and humiliation rituals play a role), and (III) the politics of cringe (where norms and values are renegotiated to indicate discomfort on a collective level).
Each of these sections will involve junior academics (including Ph.D. candidates) as well as more experienced researchers who currently work on cringe and related phenomena like awkwardness and disparagement. The aim is not just to initiate a conversation on a level playing field between participants at different career stages, with everyone contributing both as a presenter and as a respondent, but also to spark a conversation between the German and the Anglo-American research landscape.

This paper asserts that we accept or reject humorous texts discursively on the basis of what we perceive as authorial agendas. This “authorial agenda spotting” is activated by discursive “triggers”, which identify, filter, reject, endorse, or otherwise subjectively interpret the discourse of a textual author. This study was prompted by observing the negative reception of a humorous text by a predominantly Muslim postgraduate student cohort who signalled cultural identity and social cohesion by rejecting a text which subverted gender performance according to their discursive expectations. The study sought to compare this triggered effect with the reception of the same text by a distinctly pre-disposed audience comprised of same-sex-attracted bloggers. This reception in turn was contrasted with the reception of the text by mainstream media reviewers. The text itself seems to spark these discursive triggers in all three audiences. It is taken from “The Dame Edna Treatment” (2007), a TV...

Phil Callaway says, "I have a fear of speed bumps, but I'm getting over it." Janice gave Ed a birthday present of Phil Callaway's newest book 'Laugh Again like a Child'. Reading this book caused us to laugh and chuckle deeply. We hoped then that we could interview Phil. Who might have imagined that a comedian could be a missionary? Phil was told that it would never work. "I took a lot of heat early on for combining a message of humour with a message of hope in Christ. To laugh didn't seem to be the holiest of things." Becoming a missionary comedian was not intentional:

Because most theories of humour emphasize its intersubjective and/or semantic nature, they fail to fully appreciate and explain self-directed humour. Through a critical exploration of the implications of different theories of humour and satire, this paper argues that the spectrum of reflexive humour and satire can be categorized according to the figure of the satirist and the target of satire, both of whom can feature individual or collective social selves. Depending on the satirist and the scope of satire, the functions of reflexive humour may range from securing psychological homeostasis to dealing with more impersonal, social and philosophical concerns.

The book provides new insights into the interface between humour studies and media discourse analysis, connecting two areas of scholarly interest that have not been studied extensively before. The volume adopts a multi-disciplinary approach, concentrating on the various roles humour plays in print and audiovisual media, the forms it takes, the purposes it serves, the butts it targets, the implications it carries and the differences it may assume across cultures. The phenomena described range from conversational humour, canned jokes and wordplay to humour in translation and news satire. The individual studies draw their material for analysis from traditional print and broadcast media, such as magazines, sitcomts, films and spoof news, as well as electronic and internet-based media, such as emails, listserv massages, live blogs and online news.

पुरुषांनी स्त्रियांबद्दल केलेल्या विनोदात बहुधा सत्तासंबंध असतो, असे लक्षात येते. हिंसा ही सत्ताप्राप्तीच्या प्रक्रियेत अंतर्निहित घटक म्हणून काम करते. विनोद जर सत्तासंबंध प्रस्थापित करणारी घटना ठरत असेल तर असे विनोद हिंसक मानले पाहिजेत. तसे झाले की विनोद निर्विष न ठरत विषारी व हिंसक बनतो.

In comedies, the idea of community is an indispensable staple – be it as an (implied) audience, as butt of the joke or as what Werner Röcke has termed Lachgemeinschaften (communities of laughter), i.e. groups of an unforeseeable and fluid nature that can renegotiate power relations and social order. Communities of laughter can arise spontaneously, yet they follow conventionalized practices and rely on shared codes. This has allowed for their integration into generic forms such as film comedies, where the idea of community has featured prominently ever since the success of postwar Ealing films (such as Passport to Pimlico): here, a tightly-knit group of amicable underdogs usually challenges a powerful institution, negotiating questions of Britishness in the process.
This article traces the heritage of this type of Lachgemeinschaft in contemporary British comedies and points to a two-fold development.
Whilst the mildly anarchic but ultimately conciliatory spirit of Ealing comedy survives in recent box-office hits like The Full Monty or Made in Dagenham, there are other developments which challenge the idea of a community based on principles of mutual solidarity. It is television in particular where the recent rise of “cringe comedies” (often darkly humorous narratives invoking feelings of discomfort and embarrassment) suggests a much bleaker outlook on social reality.
The article draws upon numerous examples both from films and influential cringe series such as The Office in order to interrogate this divide, to question the importance of media-related difference in generating communities of laughter, and to analyse the underlying concepts of Britishness that become visible in the process.

Resumen: Este artículo trata sobre la problemática que entraña el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje del humor dentro del contexto educativo de la enseñanza del es-pañol como lengua extranjera (ELE). Dicho elemento resulta esencial en el desarrollo pleno de la competencia pragmática y es un componente fundamental de la competencia comunicativa que el aprendiente de lengua extranjera (LE) o de segunda lengua (L2) tiene que ser capaz de desarrollar, sobre todo, en niveles avanzados. Por ello, repasaremos cuáles son los problemas que subyacen en las propuestas didácticas que se han llevado a cabo al respecto para poder determinar las claves que permitan llegar a una explotación didáctica satisfactoria del humor. Asimismo, propondremos otro modelo de explotación didáctica de un monólogo humorístico y comen-taremos los resultados de esta propuesta dentro del aula.
Abstract: This paper deals with the difficulties of the humour teaching-learning process within the educational context of teaching Spanish as a foreign language (SFL). This aspect is essential in the full progress of the pragmatic competence and it is a fundamental component of the communicative competence that the student of a foreign language (FL) or a second language (L2) must be able to develop, above all, in advanced levels. Therefore, we will analize what are the problems that underlie the didactic units which have been developed in order to determine the main keys to reach a satisfactory humoristic didactic unit. Moreover, another stand-up comedy didactic unit will be proposed and the results of this didactic unit in the SFL class.

Quelques éléments et perspectives d'inspiration bahá'íe
La place de l'individu dans la communauté, en tant qu'acteur de la construction d'une civilisation mondiale

Mots clés: thèmes, religion & science: sources de savoir, instrument, civilisation, concepts, cadres, stratégies, références, principes, unité & justice, réalité, amour & esprit, spectateur & acteur, construction, bâtir, apprendre ensemble, processus.
Religion,

ÖZET
Mizah, “gülmece, eğlendirme, güldürme, ince alay, şaka yapmak” anlamlarına gelmektedir. Mizahın en önemli aracı ise fıkradır. Mizah ve fıkra toplumun kültürel kimliği ve düşünce yapısının oluşturulmasında ve aktarılmasında önemli birer yapı taşıdır. Bu yüzden mizahın neden yapıldığını doğru bir şekilde yorumlayabilmek için pek çok mizah teorisi ortaya çıkmıştır. Bu teoriler sayesinde mizahın nasıl oluştuğu, mizah yoluyla verilmek istenen mesajın ne olduğu daha anlaşılır hale gelmiştir.
Sözlü anlatı geleneği içerisinde fıkralar sadece güldürme maksadıyla anlatılmamaktadırlar. Bundan dolayı fıkraların hangi amaçla icra edildiklerini anlayabilmek için mizah teorilerinden yararlanmak gerekmektedir. Bu bakış açısından yola çıkarak çalışmamızda, Mersin ilinden derlenen 15 adet fıkra metni modern mizah teorilerinden uyumsuzluk kuramı, üstünlük kuramı ve rahatlama kuramı bakımından incelenip değerlendirilmiştir. Öncelikle mizah ve fıkra arasındaki ilişki açıklanmış, devamında modern mizah teorileri hakkında bilgi verilmiş, fıkralar bu teorilere göre incelenerek değerlendirilmiştir.
Çalışmamızda fıkraları mizah teorilerine göre incelendiği zaman “güldürme” amacı dışında kültürün aktarımı, toplumsal ve bireysel eleştiri, tepki, alay, protesto, rahatlama gibi pek çok kapalı işlevi yerine getirdiği de tespit edilmiştir. Sonuç olarak, mizah denildiğinde akla ilk gelen türlerden biri olan fıkraların sadece tek boyutlu değerlendirilmemesi gerektiği açıkça ortaya konmaya çalışılmıştır. 
Anahtar Kelimeler: Mizah teorileri, üstünlük kuramı, uyumsuzluk kuramı, rahatlama kuramı, Mersin fıkraları

AN ANALYSIS ON MERSİN ANECTODES ACCORDING TO HUMOR THEORIES
ABSTRACT
Humor means like “humour, entertaining, laughing, irony, make joke”. Anectode is the most important tool of humor. Humor and anectode are an important milestone to create and transfer cultural identitiy and mentality of community. Thus, it has appeared many humor theories to interpret correctly why humor is done. Thanks to these theories, how the humor create and the message via humor are understood better.
Anectodes have not been telling for only purpose of laughing in oral narrative tradition Therefore, it is required to comprehend the humor theories for realizing the aim of anectode telling. Starting from this point of view, in our study, the 15 anectodes which compiled in Mersin have been analyzed and evaluated on account of the superiority theory, the incongruity theory and the relaxation theory in humor theories. First of all, the relationship between humor and anectode were explained, after that it were given information about modern humor theories and these anectodes were examined and considered according to these theories.
In conclusion, anectodes that one of the first thing come to mind when humor is called have been appeared clearly that should not be considered only one dimension. In our study, when we examined the anectodes according to humor theories, it is found that there are many latent functions “transferring culture, social and personal criticism, reaction, ridicule, protest, relaxation”  in addition to “laughing”.
Key Words: Humor theories, the superiority theory, the incongruity theory, the relaxation theory, Mersin anectodes

Статья посвящена анализу соответствия редакторской политики журнала «Перец» властным директивам, помещенным в редакционной статье «Против идеологических извращений в литературе» в газете «Правда» от 2 июля 1951. Был рассмотрен процесс спускания директив от органов власти к работникам прессы. Сделан вывод о поливариативости интерпретаций «Перцем» партийных указаний и выдвинуто предположение о возможных причин.
This article is devoted to analyze the conformity between the editorial policy of the magazine "Perets" and government directives. The second was reflected in an editorial entitled "Against the ideological distortions in the literature" in the newspaper "Pravda" on July 2, 1951.

Exhibition catalogue for BACKFLIP: Feminism and Humour in Contemporary Art, held at Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Victorian College of the Arts (VCA), Melbourne, 27 April to 25 May 2013.

Artists: Catherine Bell, Melanie Bonajo, Brown Council, Catherine or Kate, Patty Chang, Guerrilla Girls, Hotham Street Ladies, Alice Lang, Louise Lawler, Tracey Moffatt, Nat & Ali, Frances (Budden) Phoenix, Pushpamala N, Hannah Raisin, Pipilotti Rist, Mika Rottenberg, Christian Thompson and Paul Yore.

This exhibition affirms laughter as an important and potent tool for feminist artists across generations, geographies and political contexts. Following on from last year’s lecture by the Guerrilla Girls, BACKFLIP will present a range of strategies and approaches from slapstick to satire, detouring through irony and black humour.

Editor: Laura Castagnini. Authors: Jo Anna Isaak, Laura Castagnini, Vikki McInnes. Published by Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, 2013. 47pp.

This essay draws its title from a Mark Twain quotation – “Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand” – that is probably quite familiar to many who study the relation of humour and politics. Encapsulating a specific attitude towards humour, and in particular the political possibilities of humour, this line is frequently evoked in the context of arguments regarding the ability of humour to constitute a form of transgressive or even radical politics that questions, challenges and critiques existing structures of power. What is often over-looked in these citations, though, is that in its original context, Twain’s unfinished novel The Mysterious Stranger, the line is not only spoken by a highly morally ambiguous character, the nephew of Satan (himself also confusingly named Satan), but that shortly after the same character declares that humanity has only a “mongrel perception of humor (sic), nothing more.” Humanity, Satan declares, “lack[s] sense and the courage” to use humour as a “really effective weapon.” Eager to celebrate the political work of humour, Twain’s Satan’s caveats are often overlooked by theorists and commentators who instead take up Twain’s quotation almost as a form of argument by proverb that demonstrates the radical, critical potential of humour. In contrast to that tendency, in this essay I seek to focus on these disruptive details as a lens through which to re-examine the political potential often ascribed to humour and, in particular, the theoretical construction of humour as a form of critique.

The Φιλόγελως is a Greek anthology of humour. One of its sections testifies that Sidonian people had a reputation for foolishness which is otherwise unattested. The jokes of this section are here presented and examined, also in order to try to shed some light on the possible origin of this ancient ethnic humour, as well as to evaluate the presence of genuinely Sidonian features.