Pretend The World Is Funny And Forever

Author : S. Fisher
Publisher : Psychology Press
ISBN 13 : 1317770064
Total Pages : 269 pages
Book Rating : 4.60/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Pretend the World Is Funny and Forever written by S. Fisher and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2014-01-14 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1982. The intent of this book is to build an understanding of the people who create humor and are expert at making people laugh. Who are the comedians and clowns of the world? Where do they come from? Why are they so dedicated to tickling funny bones? In what ways are they unique? It is primarily to studying comedians, clowns, and other funny people. It seeks to provide an understanding of the origins, the motivations, and personalities of those who make humor and in exploring the factors that shape actors and other public entertainers.

Author : S. Fisher
Publisher : Psychology Press
ISBN 13 : 1317770056
Total Pages : 301 pages
Book Rating : 4.53/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Pretend the World Is Funny and Forever written by S. Fisher and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2014-01-14 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1982. The intent of this book is to build an understanding of the people who create humor and are expert at making people laugh. Who are the comedians and clowns of the world? Where do they come from? Why are they so dedicated to tickling funny bones? In what ways are they unique? It is primarily to studying comedians, clowns, and other funny people. It seeks to provide an understanding of the origins, the motivations, and personalities of those who make humor and in exploring the factors that shape actors and other public entertainers.

Author : Adolphe Nysenholc
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN 13 : 311085774X
Total Pages : 428 pages
Book Rating : 4.40/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Charlie Chaplin written by Adolphe Nysenholc and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2014-07-24 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Nancy A. Walker
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 9780842026888
Total Pages : 302 pages
Book Rating : 4.86/5 ( download)

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Download or read book What's So Funny? written by Nancy A. Walker and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 1998 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Critical studies attempting to define and dissect American humor have been published steadily for nearly one hundred years. However, until now, key documents from that history have never been brought together in a single volume for students and scholars. What's So Funny? Humor in American Culture, a collection of 15 essays, examines the meaning of humor and attempts to pinpoint its impact on American culture and society, while providing a historical overview of its progres-sion. Essays from Nancy Walker and Zita Dresner, Joseph Boskin and Joseph Dorinson, William Keough, Roy Blount, Jr., and others trace the development of American humor from the colonial period to the present, focusing on its relationship with ethnicity, gender, violence, and geography. An excellent reader for courses in American studies and American social and cultural history, What's So Funny? explores the traits of the American experience that have given rise to its humor.

Author : Rick Bowers
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317071972
Total Pages : 150 pages
Book Rating : 4.76/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Radical Comedy in Early Modern England written by Rick Bowers and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-08 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on the generic and mythic strength of comedy and the theories of Bakhtin, Bergson, and Hobbes, this book identifies the radical nature of early modern English comedy. The satirical comedic actions that shape the "Shepherds' Play," Thomas Dekker's pamphlets, and the comic dramas of Marston, Middleton, and Jonson are all driven, Bowers points out, by an ability to criticize authority, assert plebeian culture, and insist on the complexity and innovation of human discourse. The texts examined (including The Jew of Malta, Metamorphosis of Ajax, Antonio and Mellida, Bartholomew Fair, The Alchemist, and A Chaste Maid in Cheapside) simultaneously create and employ standard comedic elements. Farce, absurdity, excess, over-the-top characters, unremitting irony, black humor, toilet humor, and tricksters of all types - such features and more combine to satirize medical, religious, and political authority and to implement necessary social change. Written with a narrative ease, Radical Comedy in Early Modern England shows how comic interventions both describe and reconfigure prevalent authority in its own time while arguing that, through early modern comedy, one can observe the changes in social behavior and understandings characteristic of the Renaissance.

Author : Lawrence J. Epstein
Publisher : PublicAffairs
ISBN 13 : 0786724927
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.25/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Haunted Smile written by Lawrence J. Epstein and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2008-08-05 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lawrence Epstein's The Haunted Smile tackles a subject both poignant and delightful: the story of Jewish comedians in America. For the past century and more, American comedy has drawn its strength and soul from the comic genius of Jewish performers and writers. An incomplete listing of names makes the point: The Marx Brothers, Jack Benny, Fanny Brice, George Burns, Milton Berle, Jackie Mason, Joan Rivers, Rodney Dangerfield, Mel Brooks, Alan King, Mort Sahl, Buddy Hackett, Woody Allen, Lenny Bruce, Andy Kaufman, Richard Belzer, Jerry Seinfeld. These men and women, among others, form the canon of Jewish-American comedy. In the words of the Detroit Jewish News, The Haunted Smile "offers us a deep and subtle understanding of how Jewish culture and American openness gave birth to a new style of entertainment." Often the best way to illuminate a point is to recount some of these comedians' own brilliant routines, and Epstein uses the comedian's work to great effect, making for a book that is both a thoughtful work of history and a great deal of fun.

Author : Scott Weems
Publisher : Basic Books (AZ)
ISBN 13 : 0465031706
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.02/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Ha! written by Scott Weems and published by Basic Books (AZ). This book was released on 2014-03-04 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humor, like pornography, is famously difficult to define. We know it when we see it, but is there a way to figure out what we really find funny—and why? In this fascinating investigation into the science of humor and laughter, cognitive neuroscientist Scott Weems uncovers what’s happening in our heads when we giggle, guffaw, or double over with laughter. While we typically think of humor in terms of jokes or comic timing, in Ha! Weems proposes a provocative new model. Humor arises from inner conflict in the brain, he argues, and is part of a larger desire to comprehend a complex world. Showing that the delight that comes with “getting” a punchline is closely related to the joy that accompanies the insight to solve a difficult problem, Weems explores why surprise is such an important element in humor, why computers are terrible at recognizing what’s funny, and why it takes so long for a tragedy to become acceptable comedic fodder. From the role of insult jokes to the benefit of laughing for our immune system, Ha! reveals why humor is so idiosyncratic, and why how-to books alone will never help us become funnier people. Packed with the latest research, illuminating anecdotes, and even a few jokes, Ha! lifts the curtain on this most human of qualities. From the origins of humor in our brains to its life on the standup comedy circuit, this book offers a delightful tour of why humor is so important to our daily lives.

Author : Robert A. Stebbins
Publisher : McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN 13 : 9780773507357
Total Pages : 180 pages
Book Rating : 4.53/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Laugh-Makers written by Robert A. Stebbins and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 1990 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Laugh-Makers is an intensive sociological field study of the drive to become a successful stand-up comic in Canada. Robert Stebbins interviewed fifty-seven practising stand-up comedians and fifteen booking agents, show organizers, personal managers, and club managers and owners. He also observed the performances of approximately 140 amateurs and professionals from Vancouver to Halifax. Televised comedy - especially important in French Canada - and informal discussions with some twenty additional comics were also a valuable component of his research.

Author : Joshua Wolf Shenk
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN 13 : 9780618773442
Total Pages : 372 pages
Book Rating : 4.44/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Lincoln's Melancholy written by Joshua Wolf Shenk and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2005 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A thoughtful, nuanced portrait of Abraham Lincoln that finds his legendary political strengths rooted in his most personal struggles. Giving shape to the deep depression that pervaded Lincoln's adult life, Joshua Wolf Shenk's Lincoln's Melancholy reveals how this illness influenced both the president's character and his leadership. Lincoln forged a hard path toward mental health from the time he was a young man. Shenk draws from historical record, interviews with Lincoln scholars, and contemporary research on depression to understand the nature of his unhappiness. In the process, he discovers that the President's coping strategies--among them, a rich sense of humor and a tendency toward quiet reflection--ultimately helped him to lead the nation through its greatest turmoil.

Author : Paul Lewis
Publisher : State University of New York Press
ISBN 13 : 1438410700
Total Pages : 212 pages
Book Rating : 4.08/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Comic Effects written by Paul Lewis and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 1989-08-15 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lewis draws on both humor theories and research, arguing for the development of interdisciplinary methodologies in the study of literary humor. He demonstrates that the sociologist of humor and the comic playwright approach the same subject—humor in and between groups—with different tools, that writers of Bildungsromane and developmental psychologists share a common interest in the role of humor in maturation, and that the monsters that haunt the psyches of professional comedians can be useful in understanding the odd minglings of humor and fear in Gothic fiction. His treatment of writers who differ widely in their use of humor suggests that the complexity and diversity of humor make it a richly variable determinant of character, genre, and writer.