1,721,131 research outputs found
Joking Against Humanity? Dark Humor and (De)familiarization
Full text linkBeing based on incongruity and on various kinds of deviation from conventional logic, humor maintains a privileged link with defamiliarization. This is especially the case with dark humor, as the contrast between non-serious and “dark” components often ends up defamiliarizing automatic expectations about the boundaries of humor itself. This chapter proposes a systematic definition of dark humor, establishing a distinction between three basic types (or reception modes) and discussing how each of these types relates to defamiliarization on both a formal and an ideological level. The three types are defined as taboo-breaking (defamiliarizing the discursive habits surrounding a given dark scenario), disparaging (familiarizing negative stereotypes about the victims of the mentioned scenario), and sarcastic (defamiliarizing patterns of thought or behavior that are held morally responsible for the scenario). The key features of each of these categories, as well as the fuzzy boundaries between them, are exemplified through the discussion of a wide range of examples—from Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal (1729) to Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons, COVID-19 memes, and a controversial Holocaust joke by stand-up comedian Jimmy Carr (His Dark Material, 2021)
Introduction
Full text linkIn this chapter, the editors introduce Viktor Shklovsky’s definition of ostranenie and its long-lasting influence on later developments in literary and art theory (from Brecht’s Verfremdungseffekt to Mark Fisher’s The Weird and the Eerie). After discussing recent scholarship on e(n)strangement, the editors also consider the reasons behind the growing interest in this topic against the backdrop of specific scholarly trends within and beyond the Humanities—including the “Weird turn,” postcritique, 4E cognition, and new formalism, but also decoloniality and posthumanism. In dialogue with this wide range of theoretical and methodological perspectives, as well as with previous research specifically focusing on Shklovsky’s work and its afterlife, this collection aims to further illuminate ostranenie’s relevance in the present day
Laughter from Realism to Modernism: Misfits and Humorists in Pirandello, Svevo, Palazzeschi, and Gadda
No full textAs best exemplified by the works of Pirandello, Svevo, Palazzeschi, and Gadda, Italian modernist fiction is particularly rich in bizarre and ludicrous characters, whose originality is often derided by a uniform society. On the other hand, laughter can also be used by the author (or by the misfits themselves) as a reaction to the levelling pressure of social life – Pirandello’s umorismo, Svevo’s irony, Palazzeschi’s controdolore, and Gadda’s satire are all good cases in point. Looked at from this perspective, early 20th-century Italian fiction can set the basis for an innovative reflection on broader comparative themes. What is the role of laughter and individual diversity in international Modernism? How is modernist eccentricity related to the representations of originality in the 18th and 19th centuries, from Sterne to Balzac and Dostoevsky? And what does it tell us about the fear of homogenisation as a crucial aspect of the modern social imaginary
Cartoon Controversies at the European Court of Human Rights:Towards Forensic Humor Studies
Full text linkHow can judges draw a line between innocent jokes and potentially harmful ones? Due to its inherent link with ambiguity, humor is an extremely arduous testing ground for the legal regulation of freedom of expression—all the more so in the case of cartoons and other forms of highly condensed, predominantly visual humor. The juridical challenges presented by humorous expression are particularly topical in the digital age, as shown by the mediatic impact of recent humor scandals from Jyllands-Posten to Charlie Hebdo; nevertheless, the potential for interdisciplinary dialogue between law and humor studies is still strikingly underexplored. This paper aims to contribute to the development of forensic humor studies by analyzing a corpus of 10 rulings delivered by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), revolving around controversial examples of predominantly visual humor. After identifying the criteria underpinning the selected judgements and discussing the problems posed by the current ECtHR approach, the present study sets out to illustrate how insights coming from humor studies can prove instrumental in tackling those problems. Building on theoretical models proposed by Wayne Booth and Paul Simpson, it will be argued that a closer dialogue with humor studies can be of particular help to judges dealing with three key questions: does the impugned text clearly signal its humorous or satirical intent? What is the aim or message hiding behind the humorous surface? And to what extent should the author be held accountable for different (and potentially dangerous) interpretations of the same text
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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