Laughter

What makes some jokes so funny? Can comedy really effect social change? Is laughter just catharsis—a therapeutic release of personal and social discontent—or can it also voice real opposition? Another basic question that we often take for granted, why do we laugh?  In this course, we will approach the topic of comedy from every angle, while also keeping the funny alive. We will read philosophies and theories of comedy, satirical newspapers, and social histories of stand-up. We will watch funny movies, TV shows, Internet memes, viral videos, and talk about them. And, of course, we will write and perform our own comedy in the classroom.

Both social input and facial feedback appear to be processed differently by individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We tested the effects of both of these types of input on laughter in children with ASD. Sensitivity to facial feedback was tested in 43 children with ASD, aged 8-14 years, and 43 typically developing children matched for mental age (6-14), in order to examine whether children with ASD use bodily feedback as an implicit source of information. Specifically, children were asked to view cartoons as they normally would (control condition), and while holding a pencil in their mouth forcing their smiling muscles into activation (feedback condition) while rating their enjoyment of the cartoons. The authors also explored the effects of social input in children with ASD by investigating whether the presence of a caregiver or friend (companion condition), or the presence of a laugh track superimposed upon the cartoon (laugh track condition) increased the children's s...

Satires offer themselves to the audience in all kinds of forms: from novels to pamphlets, from cartoons to ritual performances, from learned wit to slanderous attacks. This was as much the case in early modern Europe as it is in contemporary (Western) society. Still, in all their variety, satirical utterances seem to share at least one characteristic, namely their double bind to both seriousness and laughter. In this paper, I analyse this double bind with the help of two Dutch cases of satire from the late eighteenth century.

The first case consists of a political periodical from the 1780’s, that makes use of the ‘magic-lantern formula’, which means that it imitates the live performance of a magic-lantern show or raree show (peepshow), a regular feature at eighteenth-century fairs. This Lanterne magique of toverlantaern applies the ‘magic-lantern formula’ to perform slanderous ridicule. The second case is an almanac-like series of booklets, published between 1792 and 1801 by the eccentric physician Pieter van Woensel, under the title De Lantaarn (‘The Lantern’). In these illustrated booklets, Van Woensel offers his ironic critique on contemporary politics and society.

The two cases differ in many ways. The Lanterne magique is highly partisan and uses a harsh kind of humour that is solely aimed at scapegoating political enemies. Van Woensel’s Lantaarn is ideologically ambivalent and uses the weapon of irony to lay bare the ludicrousness of the day. Nevertheless the two are related through their taking together of seriousness and playfulness/jest, their shared intention to make the audience laugh but at the same time to convey to it a more serious (political or moral) message.

Perhaps it is especially this double face of satire that makes its meaning oftentimes so difficult to grasp, not only for the audience, but also for scholars and literary critics. Looking at satire through the lens of its simultaneously serious and playful intentions might thus lead to a better understanding of the working of satire in general.

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.

Esse texto não é um texto e é um texto: um jogo-diálogo. Foi escrito por meio de conversas via aplicativo de comunicação vitual que seguem integralmente reveladas. Ora os textos são copiados do aplicativo e colados nesse arquivo, ora são trazidos como QR Code, devido a limitação de espaço. Abordamos o tema da alegria, testando seu vínculo
com o riso, a gargalhada, o desejo e a potência de agir a partir de perguntas emergentes e desdobramentos em conversa, sem estabelecer de antemão os rumos dessa escrita. Acolhendo a proposição de uma escrita performativa, apresentamos o jogo como possibilidade de partilha e uma relação entre arte e desvio em possíveis
conexões com a produção de vitalidade.

The laughter of Samuel Beckett’s characters is frequently strange and unsettling. Characters laugh unpredictably, and the reader or spectator does not feel prompted to join them; when we do laugh in response to the Beckettian text, we are often shocked by our own lack of propriety. I examine laughter theory and the laughter in Gothic texts to explore why Beckettian laughter so disconcerts us, and what the implications of this affective response are for our understanding of what constitutes the human, and of our own ostensibly human identities.

In this paper, we present our work on analysis and classification of smiled vowels, chuckling (or shaking) vowels and laughter syllables. This work is part of a larger framework that aims at assessing the level of amusement in speech using the audio modality only. Indeed all of these three categories occur in amused speech and are considered to contribute in the expression of different levels of amusement. We first analyze these three amused speech components on the acoustic level. Then, we improve a classification system we previously developed. With a limited amount of data and features, we are able to obtain good classification results with different systems. Among the compared systems, the best one achieved 82.8% of accuracy, therefore outperforming chance.

https://vimeo.com/545973878

Menacing Laughter and other Bodily Contortion /
Research Seminar invitation by David Zagoury
Tristan Weddigen Department
Bibliotheca Hertziana
Rome, November 12, 2019

The conference will be an occasion to present my methodological approach of the visual culture of laughter during the Early Modern period, by focusing on the category of comic paintings that I did not analyze in La Peinture facétieuse (2016).

The production of pitture ridicule or comic paintings has been studied mainly in relation to theater and literature, focusing on its links to the emerging seventeenth century genre scenes. Yet, the perception and the effect of these paintings on the viewer have been largely overlooked probably because the adjective "ridiculous" seems to describe a laugh of superiority caused by the sight of something or someone that intentionally or unintentionally provokes the spectator's amusement. In the conference, I will suggest that these paintings were capable to both amuse and trouble the viewer by exploiting the aggressive, threatening, desacralizing and deceitful power of excessive laughter. Moreover, I will study their "grotesque mode" in relation to artistic awareness and ingenuity.

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.

What does love have to do with sleep? In her philosophical essay "The Second Sex," Simone de Beauvoir reflects upon the sleep from the perspective of existentialist feminism, focusing on the French writer Violette Leduc and her novel "Je hais les dormeurs" from 1948 in which she describes how a woman unloads her hate for a man while he sleeps. These few passages remained widely unexplored within the phenomenological and feminist research. In this article, I explore Beauvoir’s existentialist reading of Leduc and suggest some alternative conclusions.

While much has been written about what democracies should look like, much less has been said about how to actually train citizens in democratic perspectives and skills. Amid the social and political crises of our time, many programs seeking to bridge differences between citizens draw from the surprising field of improvisational theater. Improv trains people to engage with one another in ways that promote empathy and understanding. Don Waisanen demonstrates how improv-based teaching and training methods can forward the communication, leadership, and civic skills our world urgently needs. Waisanen includes specific exercises and thought experiments that can be used by educators; advocates for civic engagement and civil discourse; practitioners and scholars in communication, leadership, and conflict management; training and development specialists; administrators looking to build new curricula or programming; and professionals seeking to embed productive, sustainable, and socially responsible forms of interaction in and across organizations. Ultimately this book offers a new approach for helping people become more creative, heighten awareness, think faster, build confidence, operate flexibly and inclusively, improve expression and governance skills, and above all, think and act more democratically.

Political theorists have traditionally grappled with laughter by posing a simple, normative question: 'What role, if any, should laughter play in the polis?'. However, the outsized presence of laughter in contemporary politics has rendered this question increasingly obsolete. What good does determining laughter's role in the polis do when the polis itself is to a large extent shaped by laughter? The present essay argues that Kant's aesthetic investigations of laughter in the Critique of Judgment and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View offer a much needed alternative to the normative discourse. Kant theorizes laughter as an intensely dialectical experience-at once an aesthetic judgment and an affect. Laughter in Kant enacts dissensus: it disrupts and transforms sensus communis, or the ways subjects see and hear the world in common that organize and structure a political community. The essay illustrates the advantages of a Kantian conception of the politics of laughter over the normative discourse by examining Dave Chappelle's controversial 2019 stand-up comedy special Sticks & Stones. It concludes that the dissensus enacted by laughter, while not necessarily democratic, provides a privileged opening for democratic politics.

P.P.Grzybowski, S.Iwasiów: Wspólnota śmiechu. [w:] „Refleksje - Zachodniopomorski Dwumiesięcznik Oświatowy” nr 4/2020, Zachodniopomorskie Centrum Doskonalenia Nauczycieli, ISSN 2450-8748, s.31-37.
Wywiad poświęcony zagadnieniu śmiechu jako czynnikowi poprawiania jakości życia i budowania wspólnoty - nie tylko w kontekście szkolnym. Autorzy rozmawiają o korzeniach zainteresowania śmiechem jako kategorią badawczą oraz elementem działalności społecznej, a także o współczesnych okolicznościach śmiechu w życiu indywidualnym i sferze publicznej.

Following on from the growing body of literature examining laughter in specific institutional contexts, this essay seeks to examine a conversational activity falling somewhere between the norms of casual and institutional conversation. This paper looks at laughter in a specific verbal play activity, the Story-Telling Word Game, played by two groups of friends and family, a word-game played by participants co-constructing a story one word at a time. The data is a transcript of approximately 11,500 words comprising a total of five entire Story-Telling Word Games. Initially, the Story-Telling Word Game will be examined as an activity type, and responses to game-turns will be analysed in terms of preference, in order to gain a greater understanding of the Story-Telling Word Game, and to centre the laughter analyses within a frame of reference. Then certain laughter categories will be examined, specifically those occurring near or during game-turns, as opposed to turns-at-talk. This essay adds to the growing body of Conversation Analytic literature examining laughter in very specific contexts, and research that demonstrates that laughter is not always related to humour.

Keywords
Conversation analysis, laughter, humour, activity types, word games

This paper explores how ‘laughter’ is communicated in a structured language learning forum. The participants are English language learners at levels A1-B1 (according to the Common European Framework), and their teachers. I start by surveying what can be analysed as ‘laughter’ including the textual representation of laughter sounds; laughter/humour related terms; emoticons; intensification; the co-construction of a humorous frame. I then go on to look at the interactional functions of the laughter in this context through analysing who laughs, what at, when, and what it accomplishes.

"We participate in moral debate, instead of taking morality for granted, because of discontent with the moral discourse in vogue. We feel that something is distorted or concealed. One way to expose deficiencies in established discourse is critical argument, but under certain specific historical circumstances, the apparent self-evidence of established moral discourse has gained such a sway, has acquired such an ability to conceal its basic vulnerability, that its validity seems beyond contestation. Then, all of a sudden, its vulnerability is revealed, through the experience of laughter. Moral criticism is preceded by laughter. All crucial transformations in the history of moral thinking were made possible by laughter and moral criticism is originally a comic genre. The moral significance of laughter is recovered with the help of four philosophers of laughter: Bakhtin, Nietzsche, Bataille and Foucault. Laughter allows reality to appear in a certain light. It is a philosophical factor in its own right. This is explained through a thorough analysis of three crucial moral revolutions occurring in the fourth century B.C., the sixteenth century A.D. and the nineteenth century A.D. These transformations involved basic experiences of laughter articulated by three outstanding protagonists, namely Socrates, Luther and Ibsen.
"

Humor is rooted in fear. Laughter is a type of screaming.  The surest way to make someone giggle is to attack them, physically or verbally. A series of experiments showed that the conventional wisdom, that laughter is about surprises, is false. Punchlines are optional. Tension is not.

This essay challenges the prevailing view among critical theorists that laughter's emancipatory power stems from its ability to speak the truth. The disparate accounts of laughter offered by Plato, Hobbes, and Nietzsche exemplify an alternative strategy for theorizing laughter as a performance of deception, or an experience that mystifies rather than enlightens. While a view of laughter as deceptive may at first appear to reduce laughter's critical leverage over ideology, I argue that this approach offers a stronger account of its emancipatory power. Speaking the truth does little more than reveal the falsity of ideology, and laughter's capacity to actually transform society hinges on how it deceives differently-namely, in such a way that prompts the imagination and construction of more democratic institutions and modes of relating. The essay concludes by considering the implications of this argument for how we understand the role of truth in critical theory today.

Seit ihrer Wiederentdeckung in den letzten Jahren ist Hannah Arendt aus den öffentlichen Debatten zu Freiheit, Unterdrückung und Flucht kaum mehr wegzudenken. Doch nicht nur, was sie dachte, ist von schlagender Aktualität, genauso bedeutsam ist, wie sie dachte. Maike Weißpflug präsentiert uns eine unentdeckte Hannah Arendt und geht in ihrer mitreißend erzählten Studie den Quellen ihres höchst ungewöhnlichen Denkstils nach. Diese findet sie nicht in der Philosophie, sondern vor allem in ihren Lektüren von Dichtern wie Homer, Conrad und Brecht. Mit ihnen wendet sich die politische Theoretikerin gegen alle großen und umfassenden Erklärungen und Theorien und macht die kleinteilige und sinnliche Erfahrungswelt zu ihrem Ausgangspunkt: Die Kunst, politisch zu denken, besteht vor allem im Mut, sich zwischen alle Stühle zu setzen. Streitbar zu sein, setzt voraus, die Welt aus der Perspektive anderer betrachten zu können und trotzdem selbst zu denken.

What makes us laugh? Who makes us laugh? And why do we pay people to make us laugh? This course seeks answers to these questions (and others), approaching them from the perspective of rhetoric. Are stand-up comedians rhetors? And if they are, what exactly is the nature and purpose of their rhetoric? Beginning with a brief introduction to classical rhetoric, it moves into epistemic rhetoric and Kenneth Burke’s concepts of dramatism and the “comic frame.” These notions of rhetoric serve as a starting point for a critical (and creative) approach to stand-up comedy. From Lenny Bruce and George Carlin to Bill Hicks and Chris Rock, this course considers performances by some of the most notable stand-up comedians of the last fifty years and asks questions about language, race, gender, class, and the function and nature of comedy and laughter. Through writing students produce genealogies of our own senses of humor, as well as perform rhetorical analyses of comedy performances. The course culminates with student performances of carefully crafted (if not necessarily funny) rhetoric.

This article explores the surprisingly decisive role that Kant's "incongruity theory" of laughter plays in his aesthetic and broader critical philosophy. First, laughter constitutes a highly specific form of aesthetic judgment in Kant. Laughter involves a discordant relation between the cognitive faculties characteristic of the sublime, but this relation obtains between the understanding and the imagination, the two faculties at play in judgments of taste on the beautiful. Second, laughter is the transcendental condition of possibility for both the beautiful and the sublime. While most commentators dismiss laughter as an afterthought of Kant's aesthetics, laughter in fact constitutes the most basic aesthetic judgment in Kant. Third, an account of aesthetic judgment that begins with laughter transforms how we understand Kant's argument that judgment unites nature and freedom. Namely, it reveals how an empirical world at odds with the subject's purposes can nevertheless advance the subject's rational vocation to think and act beyond the empirical. I conclude by arguing that Kantian critical philosophy is itself a philosophy of laughter.

Umberto Eco ha raggiunto fama mondiale come romanziere, intellettuale pubblico, esperto di filosofia medievale, semiologo e studioso di letteratura, arte, storia. Ma, prima di tutto questo, è stato un grande maestro, all'università e fuori. Claudio Paolucci del professor Umberto Eco è stato uno degli ultimi veri allievi e suo collaboratore all'Università di Bologna. Ma, prima di tutto questo, è stato un ragazzo che nel 1997 si presenta al ricevimento docenti per mettere in dubbio alcune idee di Kant e l'ornitorinco: "Quel professore, che era incidentalmente l'intellettuale italiano più famoso del mondo, passò ore e ore a discutere con un ragazzo di ventiquattro anni con un look che lo disturbava moltissimo". I pilastri del lavoro di Eco sono stati per decenni l'amore per i dubbi e la fiducia nella negoziazione, l'attitudine a gettare ponti tra idee, persone e istituzioni diverse, l'ironia e il riso come test dell'ordine esistente, ma anche la limpida vocazione alla didattica e alla ricerca. A breve distanza dalla scomparsa del maestro, Paolucci tenta una prima ricognizione dell'eredità (filosofica, pubblica, umana e intellettuale) di Umberto Eco, mostrando le strette relazioni interne tra le sue differenti attività: la teoria semiotica e la pratica di romanziere, l'analisi dei mass media e l'amore per il Medioevo, il gusto per la barzelletta e la serietà con cui prendeva il suo lavoro di professore. Art director: Cristiano Guerri. "È stato lui che ha mescolato i livelli e ridato le carte nella cultura mondiale, che dall'accademia spiegava Superman, i Peanuts, Mike Bongiorno e Rita Pavone. È stato lui a ridere di Kant, di Manzoni, di Cervantes, di Nabokov e dell'amatissimo Jorge Luis Borges. È stato lui a ridere della verità, a far ridere la verità." Claudio Paolucci Eredi Collana diretta da Massimo Recalcati euro xx,00 Claudio Paolucci Umberto Eco Claudio Paolucci è professore associato di Semiotica all'Università di Bologna ed è il coordinatore scientifico della Scuola Superiore di Studi Umanistici fondata da Umberto Eco, che ne è stato il presidente fino alla morte. Ha pubblicato Studi di semiotica interpretativa (2007) e Strutturalismo e interpretazione (2010), oltre a numerosi saggi e articoli scientifici. In copertina: illustrazione di Umberto Mischi.

Although the ethics of humor is a relatively new field, it already seems to have achieved a consensus about ethics in general. In this paper, I implicitly (1) question the view of ethics that stands behind many discussions in the ethics of humor; I do this by explicitly (2) focusing on what has been a chief preoccupation in the ethics of humor: the evaluation of humor. Does the immoral content of a joke make it more or less humorous? Specifically, I analyze whether a sexist joke is more humorous because of its sexism. Contra recent trends in the ethics of humor, I answer this question affirmatively. To this end, the paper presents a detailed and novel reading of Bergson's philosophy of humor, which I argue connects most easily and significantly to the alternate view of ethics I have in mind.

Can jokes win a hostile room, a hopeless argument, or even an election? You bet they can, according to Cicero, and he knew what he was talking about. One of Rome’s greatest politicians, speakers, and lawyers, Cicero was also reputedly one of antiquity’s funniest people. After he was elected commander-in-chief and head of state, his enemies even started calling him “the stand-up Consul.” How to Tell a Joke provides a lively new translation of Cicero’s essential writing on humor alongside that of the later Roman orator and educator Quintilian. The result is a timeless practical guide to how a well-timed joke can win over any audience.

As powerful as jokes can be, they are also hugely risky. The line between a witty joke and an offensive one isn’t always clear. Cross it and you’ll look like a clown, or worse. Here, Cicero and Quintilian explore every aspect of telling jokes―while avoiding costly mistakes. Presenting the sections on humor in Cicero’s On the Ideal Orator and Quintilian’s The Education of the Orator, complete with an enlightening introduction and the original Latin on facing pages, How to Tell a Joke examines the risks and rewards of humor and analyzes basic types that readers can use to write their own jokes.

Filled with insight, wit, and examples, including more than a few lawyer jokes, How to Tell a Joke will appeal to anyone interested in humor or the art of public speaking.

" Molla Nasreddin " was a critical periodical, which was first published in 1906. The magazine was edited by the famous intellectual Azerbaijani writer Jalil Mammadguluzadeh. The magazine was published in three different cities and periods: First in Tbilisi between 1906 and 1917; in Tabriz only in 1921; and lastly in Baku between 1922 and 1931. " Molla Nasreddin " , consisting of critical writings and illustrations managed to reach the large masses, not only in Tbilisi and Azerbaijan, but also all around the Caucasia and Muslims world. " Molla Nasreddin " was extraordinary influential with its severe critical writings and illustrations such as discussions, satiric poems, telegrams, stories, feuilletons, anecdotes, cartoons and caricatures. So " Molla Nasreddin " was the first revolutionary magazine in the press history of Azerbaijan. Hence it also became one of the most important magazines of Turkish press history. The name " Molla Nasreddin " was inspired by Nasreddin Hodja known as the humoristic and wise character of Anatolia in 13th century. So the magazine likewise criticized things with an acerbic sense of humour. It especially criticized the religious hypocrisy and the obscurant movements in the society. The magazine, which satirized the authoritarian governments and leaders in the near east, was also opposed to the colonial policies of the western countries. The magazine " Molla Nasreddin " , which supported rationalization in social and politic problems, often attracted people's attention to the difference between Azerbaijani society and western societies. In this article, it will be evaluated the critical attitude that " Molla Nasreddin " maintained. In this regard it will be examined, in its three terms, how subjects were handled with illustrations and satiric writings like poems or narratives. As a conclusion it will be revealed how the authors managed to satirize things and in what aspects the manner of " Molla Nasreddin " remained as an important magazine for Azerbaijani literature.

This article rethinks the emergence of narrative film syntax through the comedy genre, focusing on slapstick films that depict female unruliness. I discuss films featuring Mabel Normand, Florence Turner, Marie Dressler, Sarah Duhamel, and other forgotten silent comediennes, arguing that these women's performances played crucial roles in orchestrating transitions in industrial film form. Focusing on a comparison between the French Pathé and American Vitagraph companies, I examine the variety of techniques deployed to try to rationalize or contain the unruly bodily gestures of slapstick comedienne performers — most of whom have now dropped out of historical visibility entirely. I frame this comparative analysis through close readings of two key texts: a Vitagraph trick film, Princess Nicotine; or, The Smoke Fairy (dir. J. Stuart Blackton, 1909), which depicts the surrealistic plight of a male cigar smoker who gets pestered by two micrographic nicotine fairies; and a Pathé slapstick comedy, Betty Pulls the Strings (dir. Roméo Bosetti, 1910), about a madcap female trickster whose pranks wreak mass anarchy. Whereas films like Princess Nicotine micromanage their comediennes' unruly bodily performances in order to execute their trick techniques, films like Betty let their comediennes run wild in front of the camera, instead making sense of their irrational behavior through postproduction editing. Comedy has always haunted the emergence of cinema both as a narrative storytelling medium and as an international industry. Here, I analyze how unruly women and uncomfortable experiences of laughter provided coconspirators for legitimizing the motion picture's nascent storytelling vocabulary.