Engaging Humor

In Engaging Humor, Elliott Oring asks essential questions concerning humorous expression in contemporary society, examining how humor works, why it is employed, and what its messages might be. This provocative book is filled with examples of jokes and riddles that reveal humor to be a meaningful--even significant--form of expression. Oring scrutinizes classic Jewish jokes, frontier humor, racist cartoons, and contemporary joke cycles. He provides alternate ways of thinking about humorous expressions by examining their contexts--not just their contents. Arguing that incongruity and absurdity are key elements of humor, Oring also asserts that humor is a form of play and that playing with ideas does not require us to endorse them. 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. Oring suggests that racist humor is not rooted in repression and offers a new perspective on other forms of humor seemingly based on hatred, including the recent blonde joke cycle. Oring also addresses the use of jokes as commentaries on the conversations in which they are embedded and considers the similarities in the humorous traditions of the United States, Australia, and Israel--each formed through colonization in modern times. Exploring the structure, motives, and meanings of humor in everyday life In Engaging Humor, Elliott Oring asks essential questions concerning humorous expression in contemporary society, examining how humor works, why it is employed, and what its messages might be. This provocative book is filled with examples of jokes and riddles that reveal humor to be a meaningful--even significant--form of expression. Oring scrutinizes classic Jewish jokes, frontier humor, racist cartoons, blonde jokes, and Internet humor. He provides alternate ways of thinking about humorous expressions by examining their contexts--not just their contents. He also shows how the incongruity and absurdity essential to the production of laughter can serve serious communicative ends. Engaging Humor examines the thoughts that underlie jokes, the question of racist motivation in ethnic humor, and the use of humor as a commentary on social interaction. The book also explores the relationship between humor and sentimentality and the role of humor in forging national identity. Engaging Humor demonstrates that when analyzed contextually and comparatively, humorous expressions emerge as communications that are startling, intriguing, and profound. In Engaging Humor, Elliott Oring asks essential questions concerning humorous expression in contemporary society, examining how humor works, why it is employed, and what its messages might be. This provocative book is filled with examples of jokes and riddles that reveal humor to be a meaningful--even significant--form of expression._x000B_ _x000B_Oring scrutinizes classic Jewish jokes, frontier humor, racist cartoons, blonde jokes, and Internet humor. He provides alternate ways of thinking about humorous expressions by examining their contexts--not just their contents. He also shows how the incongruity and absurdity essential to the production of laughter can serve serious communicative ends._x000B_ _x000B_Engaging Humor examines the thoughts that underlie jokes, the question of racist motivation in ethnic humor, and the use of humor as a commentary on social interaction. The book also explores the relationship between humor and sentimentality and the role of humor in forging national identity. Engaging Humor demonstrates that when analyzed contextually and comparatively, humorous expressions emerge as communications that are startling, intriguing, and profound "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. Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Table of Contents 8 Preface 10 1. Appropriate Incongruity Redux 16 2. The Senses of Absurd Humor 28 3. Joke Thoughts 42 4. The Humor of Hate 56 5. Blond Ambitions and Other Signs of the Times 73 6. Humor and the Suppression of Sentiment 86 7. The Joke as Gloss 100 8. Colonizing Humor 112 9. Sigmund Freud's Jewish Joke Book 131 10. The Context of Internet Humor 144 Afterword 156 Appendix 162 Notes 178 Index 218 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.