Laughter

Parvulescu, Anca

doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.013.43

Cited by 3 publications

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“…While extensive psychological and medical research has been conducted on the effects of laughter, philosophers, linguists and cultural theorists have yet to agree on exactly why people laugh. As Anca Parvulescu points out in Laughter: Notes on a Passion (2010), language ‘insists on imposing the same word (‘laughter’) on laughs that – ontologically, aesthetically, ethically – often find themselves at opposite ends of the laughing spectrum’ (Parvulescu 2010, 19). In other words, people tend to laugh at a variety of things and for a variety of reasons: as a response to something disgusting or uncomfortable, in mirth, in jest and in ridicule.…”

Section: Humour and The Feeling Of Non-seriousnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Why They Laugh At Us?’: the functions and ethics of humour in Singaporean theatrical depictions of stigmatised illness

Hyder

2022

Med Humanities

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While humour in the context of illness might be perceived to be insensitive or inappropriate, it is used frequently in the medical setting and discussions of illness. This paper strives to answer why humour is used despite these feelings it might elicit, and attempts to outline conditions that inform the ethics of humour in an illness context.This paper analyses two Singaporean theatrical depictions of chronic and stigmatised illnesses: Haresh Sharma’sOff Centre(1993), which is about schizophrenia and depression, and Paddy Chew’s monologueCompletely With/Out Character(1999), on HIV and AIDS. In these plays, humour functions to: first, dispense information on stigmatised illnesses through mediation; second, implicate audiences in stigma-making through defamiliarisation; and third, to exert discursive control for feelings of empowerment. Furthermore, analysing these plays within their contexts demonstrate that humour is crucial for providing a more nuanced understanding of the stigmatised illness experience, since humour can illuminate culturally held notions of sickness and health.While humour is necessary for patients who are routinely misunderstood and alienated, it must be used with discretion to prevent abuse. As this paper demonstrates, the ethics of humour is more nuanced than simply possessing certain identity markers that provide the illusion of exoneration or inclusion. It is also affected by multiple axes of privilege and discrimination. In my conclusion, I argue that the ethics of humour in the illness context is contingent on whether imbalanced power relations and systems of oppression were employed and/or reproduced under the guise of non-seriousness.

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Section: Humour and The Feeling Of Non-seriousnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Why They Laugh At Us?’: the functions and ethics of humour in Singaporean theatrical depictions of stigmatised illness

Hyder

2022

Med Humanities

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“…Feminist laughter, as we approach it, may hold everything from the forbidden, quiet giggle to the roaring, uncontrollable belly laughter infused with tears of joy (cf. Parvulescu, 2010). “Men Write Women” is a space where otherwise forbidden giggles may echo with one another and grow in strength, volume and impact.…”

Section: “She Mourned Their Lovely Breasts”mentioning

confidence: 99%

“We have tiny purses in our vaginas!!! #thanksforthat”: absurdity as a feminist method of intervention

Sundén

Paasonen

2021

QRJ

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PurposeAccording to thesaurus definitions, the absurd translates as “ridiculously unreasonable, unsound, or incongruous”; “extremely silly; not logical and sensible”. As further indicated in the Latin root absurdus, “out of tune, uncouth, inappropriate, ridiculous,” humor in absurd registers plays with that which is out of harmony with both reason and decency. In this article, the authors make an argument for the absurd as a feminist method for tackling heterosexism.Design/methodology/approachBy focusing on the Twitter account “Men Write Women” (est. 2019), the rationale of which is to share literary excerpts from male authors describing women's experiences, thoughts and appearances, and which regularly broadens into social theater in the user reactions, the study explores the critical value of absurdity in feminist social media tactics.FindingsThe study proposes the absurd as a means of not merely turning things around, or inside out, but disrupting and eschewing the hegemonic logic on offer. While both absurd humor and feminist activism may begin from a site of reactivity and negative evaluation, it need not remain confined to it. Rather, by turning things preposterous, ludicrous and inappropriate, absurd laughter ends up somewhere different. The feminist value of absurd humor has to do with both its critical edge and with the affective lifts and spaces of ambiguity that it allows for.Originality/valueResearch on digital feminist activism has largely focused on the affective dynamics of anger. As there are multiple affective responses to sexism, our article foregrounds laughter and ambivalence as a means of claiming space differently in online cultures rife with hate, sexism and misogyny.

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“…Of course, a theoretical study of laughter necessarily touches on these genres, and I will not shy away from discussing, for instance, the impact of Aristophanic Old Comedy on Plato’s account of laughter. But as Bakhtin’s, Plato’s, Hobbes’s, and Nietzsche’s analyses all suggest, and as I and others argue elsewhere, laughter obeys a political logic irreducible to the genres that generate it (Giamario 2018; 2022; Parvulescu 2010, 3–4; 2017, 508). 5 My wager is that theorizing this political logic in terms of deception leads to a philosophically richer and politically more productive conception of laughter’s critical power than the prevailing veridical discourse.…”

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confidence: 92%

“…15.As Anca Parvulescu explains, one is neither fully active nor fully passive in laughter: the subject ‘“participates” in the action without predicating it’ (Parvulescu 2010, 15).…”

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confidence: 99%

It’s funny because it’s true? Reflections on laughter, deception, and critique

Giamario

2022

Philosophy & Social Criticism

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This essay challenges the prevailing view among critical theorists that laughter’s emancipatory power stems from its ability to speak the truth. The disparate accounts of laughter offered by Plato, Hobbes, and Nietzsche exemplify an alternative strategy for theorizing laughter as a performance of deception, or an experience that mystifies rather than enlightens. While a view of laughter as deceptive may at first appear to reduce laughter’s critical leverage over ideology, I argue that this approach offers a stronger account of its emancipatory power. Speaking the truth does little more than reveal the falsity of ideology, and laughter’s capacity to actually transform society hinges on how it deceives differently – namely, in such a way that prompts the imagination and construction of more democratic institutions and modes of relating. The essay concludes by considering the implications of this argument for how we understand the role of truth in critical theory today.

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Laughter

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

‘Why They Laugh At Us?’: the functions and ethics of humour in Singaporean theatrical depictions of stigmatised illness

‘Why They Laugh At Us?’: the functions and ethics of humour in Singaporean theatrical depictions of stigmatised illness

“We have tiny purses in our vaginas!!! #thanksforthat”: absurdity as a feminist method of intervention

It’s funny because it’s true? Reflections on laughter, deception, and critique

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