Engaging Humor
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: March 2003
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 224
ISBN-13: 9780252027864
Subjects: Humour; Literary studies: general; General; Humor; Humor / General; Satire And Humor; Literature - Classics / Criticism; Comic, The; History and criticism; Wit and humor
First sentence: HUMOR, I HAVE ARGUED, depends upon the perception of an appropriate incongruity; that is, the perception of an appropriate relationship between categories that would ordinarily be regarded as incongruous.
Description: "Analyzed contextually and comparatively, humorous expressions emerge as forms of human communication whose implications are startling, engaging, and profound. Engaging Humor explores Freud's theory that every thought contains a joke. Elliott Oring suggests that racist humor is not rooted in repression and offers a new perspective on other forms of humor seemingly based on hatred.

He also addresses the use of jokes as commentaries on the conversations in which they are embedded and considers the similiarites in the humorous traditions of the United States, Australia, and Israel - each formed through colonization in modern times."--BOOK JACKET.