Gender and Laughter: Comic Affirmation and Subversion in Traditional and Modern Media (Amsterdamer Beitrage Zur Neueren Germanistik, 70)

this Essay Collection Is Dedicated To Intersections Between Gender Theories And Theories Of Laughter, Humour, And Comedy. It Is Based On The Results Of A Three-year Research Programme, Entitled Gender - Laughter - Media (2003-2006) And Includes A Series Of Investigations On Traditional And Modern Media In Western Cultures From The 18th To The 20th Century. A Theoretical Opening Part Is Followed By Four Thematic Sections That Explore The Multiple Forms Of Irritating Stereotypical Gender Perceptions; Aspects Of (post-)colonialism And Multiculturalism; The Comic Impact Of Literary And Media Genres In Different National Cultures; As Well As The Different Comic Strategies In Fictional, Philosophical, Artistic Or Real Life Communication. The Volume Presents A Variety Of New Approaches To The Overlaps Between Gender And Laughter That Have Only Barely Been Considered In Groundbreaking Research. It Forms A Valuable Read For Scholars Of Literary, Theatre, Media, And Cultural Studies, At The Same Time Reaching Out To A General Readership. Gender and Laughter Table of Contents Introduction I. Gender – Laughter – Media: Theoretical Crossings Subversions of Gender Identities through Laughter and the Comic? II. Gender B(l)ending: The Comic Impact of Cross-Dressing and Body Alteration “A comic turn, turned serious”: Humour, Body Modification, and the Natural in Fay Weldon’s The Life and Loves of a She Devil “From now on, I am Carmen”: Imagining Cross-Dressing as Comic Protest in the Life and Work of Romanian-German Author Franz Hodjak Where No Woman Has Gone Before: Humour and Gender Crossing in Star Trek’s Voyager and Enterprise “To be educated is to become a Harlequin”: Cross-Skinning as Carnivalesque Hybridity in Michel Serres, Hannah Höch’s Dada, and Orlan’s Body Art III. Cross-Cultural Encounters: Race, Gender, and the Comic Indigenous Laughter: The Voice of the Other in Tales from the “South Seas” Subverting the Pantragic Heroine: Nestroy against Hebbel Black and White in Color or Black Victory? The Comic Effect ofDisplacement in the Film Noirs et blancs en couleur (1976) byJean-Jacques Annaud The City as Stage of Transgression: Performance,Picaresque Reminiscences, and Linguistic Incongruityin Emine S. Özdamar’s The Bridge of the Golden Horn IV. Gender, Genre, and the Comic: Literature, Radio, Television, and Cinema Social Satire, Literary Parody, and Gender Critique in Frenchand German Fairy Tales of the Enlightenment: Jean-JacquesRousseau and Friederike Helene Unger “But I’m a Lady!” Undoing Gender Bending inContemporary British Radio Comedy Mockumentalism: Re-Casting the Void in ContemporaryBritish TV Comedy Couples and Friends: Comic Strategies and SocialStructures in German and American Comedy Series Affirmative Humour in Bully Herbig’s Parody of Star Wars/Star Trek: (T)Raumschiff Surprise V. Comic Strategies: Gender and Laughterin Literature, Theory, Communication, and Art Aletheia as Striptease: Gendered Allegories of Truth in Heidegger, Gorgias, and Barthes Judith Butler and the Problem of Adequacy, or: The Epistemological Dimension of Laughter Comparing Same-Gender and Opposite-Gender Conversations: a Laughing Matter? The Joy of Anti-Art: Subversion through Humour in Dada List of Contributors "This essay collection is dedicated to intersections between gender theories and theories of laughter, humour, and comedy. It is based on the results of a three-year research programme, entitled "Gender - Laughter - Media" (2003-2006) and includes a series of investigations on traditional and modern media in western cultures from the 18th to the 20th century. A theoretical opening part is followed by four thematic sections that explore the multiple forms of irritating stereotypical gender perceptions; aspects of (post- )colonialism and multiculturalism; the comic impact of literary and media genres in different national cultures; as well as the different comic strategies in fictional, philosophical, artistic or real life communication. The volume presents a variety of new approaches to the overlaps between gender and laughter that have only barely been considered in groundbreaking research. It forms a valuable read for scholars of literary, theatre, media, and cultural studies, at the same time reaching out to a general readership."--Publisher's website