ABSTRACT Public discourse under authoritarian rule is not monolithic. Yet how popular rhetoric engages with the hegemonic rhetoric in the same discursive space remains understudied. This article examines the rhetoric of a standup comedy show in China, streamed online and widely popular among Chinese millennials, to understand how alternative views on social issues can coexist with the hegemonic rhetoric. Using critical discourse analysis, it argues that some standup comedy performances transgress the hegemonic rhetoric of 'positive energy' (...) without outright subversion. Comedians use subversive affirmation, self-deprecation, ambiguity, absurd fantasy, and irony to present alternative viewpoints on social issues of broad interest, such as the neoliberal work culture and gender norms. The subtle yet powerful transgressions introduce previously marginal views into the public discourse, diminishing the aura of wide acceptance and authority assumed by the hegemonic rhetoric. The standup comedy performances thus open up new discursive pathways towards non-state-sanctioned views on important social issues. (shrink)

The artform of standup comedy can be seen as having much in common with the discipline of philosophy, particularly with the way philosophy is carried out or “performed,” whether professionally or otherwise. There are, for instance, certain basic similarities between how standup comedians and philosophers value ideals of clarity and precision when it comes to the issue of determining what kind of language is best to employ if one seeks to either effectively deliver a funny joke, as (...) in the case of standup comedy, or if one seeks to effectively articulate and present an argument that can later be assessed as sound, as in the case of philosophy. The reason this is of note is because it is rooted in another similarity that serves not only to bring these two activities significantly closer but to isolate standup comedy from most artforms when it comes to how it conceives of matters pertaining to interpretation and purpose. More specifically, this is the fact that standup comedians and philosophers alike hope, and even expect on some level, that, in the best of cases, their respective jokes and reasoned arguments will compel some form of unanimous approval from those who properly understand and engage with their content. When this observation is combined with the additional observation that jokes can also serve as vehicles for imparting wisdom of a genuinely philosophical nature despite the fact that generating laughter rather than seeking truth per se represents standup comedy’s ostensive primary goal, this leads one to wonder how porous the boundaries that otherwise serve to distinguish these two activities might be. In particular, in light of the nature and scope of the many similarities that can be said to exist between them, which I lay out and discuss in the article, it seems that standup comedy could even be reasonably argued to be the artform closest to philosophy. (shrink)

Bill Cosby’s immorality has raised intriguing aesthetic and ethical issues. Do the crimes that he has been convicted of lessen the aesthetic value of his stand-up and, even if we can enjoy it, should we? This article first discusses the intimate relationship between the comedian and audience. The art form itself is structurally intimate, and at the same time the comedian claims to express an authentic self on stage. After drawing an analogy between the question of the moral character of (...) comedians and the aesthetic value of their stand-up and the debate over the ethical criticism of art, this article argues that it is reasonable to find a comedian’s performance less funny, because stand-up’s artistic success relies on this intimacy. It contrasts the comedy of Bill Cosby with that of Louis C.K. C.K.’s moral flaws are much more present in his comedy, and it is therefore more difficult to find him funny. Last, it is ethically permissible to enjoy their comedy, if no harm to others results, both because it does not corrupt the audience’s character and because amusement is valuable. (shrink)

Argues for the controversial and initially counterintuitive thesis that theatrical magic (that is, the performance of conjuring tricks) is a form of standup comedy.

Charlie Rose has called Louis C.K. "the philosopher-king of comedy," and many have detected philosophical profundity in his material. Twenty-five philosophers examine the wisdom of Louis C.K. from a variety of philosophical perspectives. The chapters draw upon C.K.'s standup comedy, the show Louie, and C.K.'s other writings. One writer looks at the different meanings of C.K.'s statement, "You're gonna be dead way longer than you were alive." One chapter shows the affinity of C.K.'s "sick of living this (...) bullshit life" with Kierkegaard's "sickness unto death." Another pursues Louis's thought that we may by our lack of moral concern "live a really evil life without thinking about it." C.K.'s insistence that "things that are not can't be" points to the philosophical problem of nothingness in relation to being. His religion is "apathetic agnostic," conveyed in his thought experiment that God began work in 1982. Louis's argument that you can have the kind of body you want if you make yourself want a disgusting, shitty body, is the Stoic ethics of Epictetus. And, as C.K. has shown in so many ways, the fact that we're soon going to die has its funny side. (shrink)

Dying is easy; comedy is hard. Comedy is sovereign. I begin with an excerpt from Bertolt Brecht’s Fugitive Conversations. Ziffel, a physicist, is chatting with the worker Kalle: For humor, I always think of the philosopher Hegel.... He had the makings of one of the greatest humorists among the philosophers.... I read his book The Great Logic once, when I had rheumatism and couldn’t move. It’s one of the greatest humorous works of world literature. It treats of the (...) way of life of concepts, those slippery, unstable, irresponsible existences; how they abuse one another and fight with knives and then sit down together to supper as though nothing had happened.... They can live... (shrink)

This article considers the normative and critical value of popular comedy. I begin by assembling and evaluating a range of political theory literature on comedy. I argue that popular comedy can be conducive to both critical and transformative democratic effects, but that these effects are contingent on the way comedic performances are received by audiences. I illustrate this by means of a case study of a comedic climate change ‘debate’ from the television show, Last Week Tonight. Drawing (...) from recent scholarship on deliberation, judgment and rhetoric, I highlight both critical and transformative dimensions of the performance. I attribute these to the vignette’s likely reception, which I describe as ‘dissonant’ – unresolved, affectively turbulent and aesthetically attuned. I argue that comedy is uniquely positioned to spur such ‘dissonant’ modes of engagement and, in so doing, to promote acknowledgement and reflective judgment. (shrink)

A partir de la afirmación de S. Critchley de que el psicoanálisis es la prolongación, profundización y complicación de lo que él llama paradigma trágico-heroico , se trata de precisar que lo trágico es lo que hace inseparables la teoría y la experiencia psicoanalítica de la risa y los fenómenos ligados a ella. Esto, en general, ha sido insuficientemente indagado. Siguiendo estos argumentos, se presentan algunas observaciones en torno a esa especie de exhortación “volver a las cosas mismas”, tan afín (...) al método freudiano, al “uso” de lo trágico-heroico en Lacan, al concepto de Cosa al aporte de Freud al humor . Por otra parte, y en completa relación con lo anterior, se destacan algunos señalamientos lacanianos que ubican al “cuerpo” como central en la experiencia de lo cómico. Y por último, se examina la contraposición Bergson - Freud - Lacan en torno a la risa, lo mecánico y el lenguaje. (shrink)

The films of Bruno Dumont are tied to unwatchability, austerity, and a post-theological seriousness. Recently, however, Dumont has taken a surprising turn towards comedy; and yet these comedies are not without the post-theological despair that characterizes his earlier films. Taking Dumont's comedy seriously, this article frames Dumont's comedic turn not as a deviation but rather as a realignment that requires retroactive reconsideration of his oeuvre's post-theological orientation. We interrogate the philosophical implications of laughter in Dumont's work and argue (...) that it suggests a new trajectory for the post-theological project. The work of Georges Bataille anchors our analysis of violent laughter, while Jean-Luc Nancy's post-theology structures our central argument. We read Nancy's post-theology into the construction of space and subjectivity in Dumont's earlier works, which characterize both human characters and the landscapes they inhabit with a pervasive sense of depthlessness or blankness. These features of absence often lead spectators to project emotions onto Dumont's characters, but we stress this blankness as foregrounding the essential unknowingness of the subject – something which also drives Bataille's notion of laughter. For Bataille, laughter is rooted in nonknowledge, it is a non-productive expenditure that exposes the limits of human existence. It is this horizon of death and nothingness that drives Dumont's comedies. Understood through post-theological laughter, Dumont's comedic films and TV series provide new ways of accounting for the death of God. This laughter in turn operates retroactively to productively reframe post-theological violence in his work. In short, this article contends that none of Dumont's films are meant to be taken seriously. Confronting the ethical and philosophical implications of Dumont's comedic turn, this article investigates the implications of reading his oeuvre through this divinely absurdist, post-theological comedic lens and articulates a theory of post-theology that foregrounds the radicality of laughter. (shrink)

In Umberto Eco’s classic novel The Name of the Rose, we are introduced to a decidedly Platonic fear of laughter. According to the blind librarian Jorge de Burgos, “[l]aughter is weakness, corruption, the foolishness of our flesh. It is the peasant’s entertainment, the drunkard’s license;... laughter remains base, a defense for the simple, a mystery desecrated for the plebeians.”1 Laughter could not accompany insight or clarity or revelation. By destroying the last known copy of the second part of Aristotle’s Poetics, (...) which delves into comedy after the already-familiar investigation of tragedy, de Burgos hopes to undermine any argument that claims to find significance in comic content. Indeed, the central plot of... (shrink)

La théorie de la tragédie de Hegel est à juste titre célèbre. Toutefois, le développement logique de l’art aboutit selon lui non à la tragédie mais à la comédie. Cet article compare ce que Hegel considère comme étant la véritable comédie (chez Aristophane et Shakespeare) et ce qu’il appelle « l’humour subjectif » (qu’il trouve, par exemple, chez Jean Paul) : alors que les humoristes manifestent liberté et maîtrise en se livrant à leurs fantaisies, les personnages comiques manifestent leur liberté (...) en se détachant des fantaisies par le fait que leurs objectifs insensés sont frustrés, tout en conservant leur inébranlable assurance au cœur même de leurs échecs. Dans cet article, j’aborde également les différentes formes de subjectivité comique identifiées par Hegel, telles que le fou qui rit ouvertement de lui-même (Falstaff), celui qui reconnaît sa folie sans rire de lui-même (Strepsiade), ou celui qui ne reconnaît pas sa folie mais reste irrépressiblement sûr de lui-même dans cette folie (Don Quichotte). J’explique ensuite pourquoi, selon Hegel, la comédie mène logiquement à la religion, et porte ainsi à son terme le développement conceptuel de l’art. Pour Hegel, le cœur de la véritable religion (qu’il identifie avec le christianisme) réside dans l’amour et le pardon, qui impliquent tous deux de se déprendre de soi-même et d’atteindre ainsi une liberté infinie « divine » dans le fini (et non dans un « au-delà » transcendant). Il est clair que les personnages comiques ne«s’abandonnent » pas jusqu’à la mort ; mais ils font pourtant signe vers un don de soi et un amour religieux en montrant qu’ils ne sont pas liés à leurs objectifs finis mais jouissent d’une liberté « divine » dans leur finitude, qui est toute humaine et souvent irréligieuse. (shrink)

: I begin by asking, What is the underlying dynamic of comedy, its generic intention? I answer by testing each of several classic theories (plus two popular cliches) against a single, brief scene in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. Each of the first six sections subjects that scene to one of seven theories, in each case singling out an idea that seems convincing and discarding other ideas that do not. Illogical Logic explains the various means by which (...) the structure of a comedy reduces the characters to absurdity, thereby generating a Catharsis of wish and fear, analogous to Aristotle's tragic catharsis of pity and fear. (shrink)

This book is the first attempt to think philosophically about the comic phenomenon in literature, art, and life. Working across a substantial collection of comic works author Agnes Heller makes seminal observations on the comic in the work of both classical and contemporary figures. Whether she's discussing Shakespeare, Kafka, Rabelais, or the paintings of Brueghel and Daumier Heller's Immortal Comedy makes a characteristic contribution to modern thought across the humanities.

Paradiso 2’s sustained direct address warns readers unprepared for its complexities to “turn back to see your shores again…for perhaps losing me, you would be lost,” but then offers the “other few” who crave “the bread of angels” the promise of a marvel that would rival the deeds of the mythological hero Jason. I will argue that, by appearing to impose this choice on its readers, this direct address in fact activates the craving for the bread of angels (for who, (...) by obeying the interpretive imperative to make such a decision, would not also be one who thereby does choose to pursue the bread that is promised in return for this obedience?). In other words, the very act of interpreting the representation of readers as divided into those who are capable of allegorical interpretation and those who are not constructs and activates the will of a single readership for the Divine Comedy and, consequently, challenges us to provide an articulation of what it means even to read or to misread the Divine Comedy. (shrink)

In Comedy Incarnate, Noël Carroll surveys the characteristics of Buster Keaton’s unique visual style, to reveal the distinctive experience of watching Keaton’s films. Bold and provocative thesis written by one of America’s foremost film theorists Takes a unique look at the philosophies behind Keaton’s style Weighs visual elements over narrative form in the analysis of the Keaton’s work Provides a fresh vantage point for analysis of film and comedy itself.

This article reconstructs Gillian Rose's idea of ‘divine comedy’, from its first articulation in Hegel Contra Sociology (2009) to the development of the idea in later works; most importantly, Love’s Work (1995). This analysis demonstrates that Rose implicitly shifted away from her earlier, pessimistic, Hegelian account of the end of art and her insistence on the ‘severe style’. Divine comedy, it is argued, may satisfy the requirements that Rose articulates for speculative thought, by traversing the constitutive dichotomies of (...) modern life – for example, between universal and particular, or between law and love – in light of individual experience. By reading Love’s Work as an exemplary modern divine comedy, this article argues for the ongoing viability of the ‘ideal style’, which Rose had previously dismissed. This, in turn, suggests a novel reading of Rose's oeuvre and affirms the possibility of a speculative poetics. (shrink)

In this article, I investigate the ways in which improvisation occurs and works in stand-up comedy. I introduce a continuum model of composing and improvising and for understanding and classifying generative and nongenerative performances. The model reflects the fact that cognitive neuroscience research on creativity and improvisation provides evidence for the claim that composing and improvising are two species of the same genus (selective creation), and the differences between generative and nongenerative performance are not categorical but vague, admitting of (...) a continuum model. The model is applied to standard cases of stand-up comedy to illuminate the specific ways in which improvisation and composition are present in stand-up comedy, and the ways in which stand-up comedy performances are mixtures of generative and nongenerative elements. In addition, I address some of the reasons why such understanding is important and useful. (shrink)

This article explores how media content may facilitate processes of recognition through playfulness and comedy. Mediated recognition is typically understood as a matter of respectful and positive representation of subaltern groups and in terms of struggles for visibility and dignity. Yet at the same time, the media address audiences in much less deferential ways that are nonetheless consequential to processes of recognition: by means of playfulness, subversion, and irreverence. This article introduces the concept of ‘playful recognition’ to account for (...) the contradictory ways in which humor can incite recognition. The article empirically illustrates this concept drawing upon a case study of Svart Humor – a comedy show aired in Norway. On the one hand, this article explores an important yet neglected dimension of mediated recognition, on the other, it introduces a recognition perspective to the study of televised comedy. (shrink)

The article investigates a possible omission within Alenka Zupančič conceptualization of comedy as presented in her 2008 book The Odd One In: – on Comedy. The lack which this work will reveal lies in Slovenian philosopher’s neglect of the conditions of possibility of experiencing comedy, which – we claim – hinges upon happiness, a state forged and conditioned by a particular relation with the “other” (the primal object in psychoanalytical meaning). In order to execute such investigation, the (...) methodological tool, rooted in both the theories of comedy and psychoanalysis, will be introduced: the navel of thought. This notion will make use of the reasoning of Sigmund Freud and posit the existence of a symptomatic point within any theory of comedy, that is a point at which a certain incongruence of the theory plays out. It is only when we are equipped with the theoretical tool of the navel of the thought will we proceed to find such a point within Alenka Zupančič book. (shrink)

This essay examines Carson’s The Trojan Women: A Comic, a 2021 translation of Euripides illustrated by Rosanna Bruno. Carson’s subtitle, through the intersection of classical and modern senses of “the comic” as a genre, demands that the reader ask of her book: What is the place of comedy in a comic about one of the bleakest plays in the Western canon? The comic elements of The Trojan Women reframe Euripides’ narrative and underscore, in a bitter irony, the disastrous impact (...) on the Greeks of the reconciliation of the gods Athena and Poseidon. (shrink)

In _Comedy Incarnate_, Noël Carroll surveys the characteristics of Buster Keaton’s unique visual style, to reveal the distinctive experience of watching Keaton’s films. Bold and provocative thesis written by one of America’s foremost film theorists Takes a unique look at the philosophies behind Keaton’s style Weighs visual elements over narrative form in the analysis of the Keaton’s work Provides a fresh vantage point for analysis of film and comedy itself.

Les comédies à l’italienne des années 1958-1980 rejouent à leur façon les grands thèmes de la morale nietzschéenne, telle est l’hypothèse de cet article. À travers des oeuvres essentielles comme Le Fanfaron de Dino Risi, et La plus belle soirée de ma vie d’Ettore Scola, le fatalisme joyeux de ce courant cinématographique teste la méthode de l’inversion des valeurs, et engage une critique radicale du sacré et des morales de la dette. On ne lui reconnaîtra pas une portée nihiliste, mais (...) au contraire la reconnaissance des vertus de la finitude, affirmant l’amour modeste de l’existence terrestre, assumant son caractère tragique et sa puissance d’exister. Les personnages de la comédie italienne apparaissent ainsi comme des prototypes d’esprits libres, à la fois « minables » et surhumains, capables enfin de transmuter les valeurs. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Comedy of Menander: Convention, Variation and OriginalityDavid KonstanZagagi, Netta. The Comedy of Menander: Convention, Variation and Originality. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995. 210 pp. Cloth, $39.95.In his comedies, Menander exploits a relatively limited range of characters and scenes. His achievement, as Netta Zagagi shows, lies in subtle variations on inherited formulas rather than in radical departures from them. As an example of Menander’s (...) art, Zagagi (32–33) cites the characterization of the young Moschion in Perikeiromene, who is gloriosior than Polemon, the love-sick miles. Again, Chrysis in Samia, because she acts in league with Moschion against his father, “represents a pattern of behaviour traditionally reserved for the character of the mother in comedy” (33). Behind these modifications and mergings of types, Zagagi sees an ethical motivation, best illustrated in Micio’s condemnation of his stepson’s behavior toward the woman he has raped; Terence’s Adelphi, based on Menander’s, is “the only play known to us in which any serious consideration is given to the problematic nature of the story pattern under review” (43). Surely Charisius’ soliloquy in Epitrepontes is another example. Zagagi’s reflections on Menander’s sensitivity to his personae, in contrast to Aristophanes’ delight in caricature (45), are fair enough. It is less clear that Menander differs significantly from the practice of other poets of New Comedy, as Zagagi suggests (32).In the second chapter, Zagagi explains Menander’s method of composition by invoking three principles or techniques that are fundamental to his plays: “polyphony,” “economy,” and “emphasis on human interaction.” These are catch-all terms. “Economy,” for example, refers to Menander’s restraint in the development of scenes that might have “diverted the spectator’s attention from the main subject” of an episode (60). The same term covers Menander’s ability to set out necessary information without undue repetition (62), as well as his thrifty use of devices such as Knemon’s bucket, which first gets dropped in the well and subsequently causes the misanthrope himself to fall in (64). Such dramatic parsimony is the stock-in-trade of well-made plays.Polyphony too, designates three different things. Zagagi ignores Bakhtin’s now classic use of the term to refer to the amalgamation of generic voices characteristic of the novel. Instead, she describes as polyphony the mixture of registers achieved by crossing para-tragic bits of dialogue with the plain style of comedy (54), divine intervention in mortal affairs (57), which is treated in detail in the sixth chapter, and the interweaving of two plot lines in a single play—not contaminatio, precisely, but rather a deft combination of two or more story patterns. [End Page 127]Thus, Dyskolos is analyzed (47) into a “romantic” strand, involving Sostratos’ efforts to win Knemon’s daughter as his bride, and a story line centered on the character of the misanthrope (Zagagi adds for good measure two “minor strands”: the sacrifice to Pan and the Gorgias plot). Zagagi sees as the price of this complexity a loss of dramatic unity: in order to avoid compromising the sketch of Knemon’s grumpiness, Menander does his best to keep the two plots of the comedy separate: “It is precisely from Menander’s constant effort to preserve the credibility of his main hero’s [i.e., Knemon’s] character by shielding him from the romantic action of the play, that the disunity of the Dyskolos stems” (47). This interpretation illustrates a major weakness in Zagagi’s search for elementary units of narrative as the basis of Menandrean composition. Every romantic plot requires not only a lover, but an obstacle or blocking figure (in Northrop Frye’s expression) as well, who, for motives of his own, inhibits the realization of the lover’s passion. In many plays, this function falls to the father of the adulescens, who disapproves of his son’s liaison with a slave-girl or otherwise unsuitable partner. In Dyskolos, the father of the girl (who by the same token is represented as a citizen) plays this role. This is as simple a scheme as one can have, and violates no presumed rule of unity of action. Menander... (shrink)

For most readers of the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel’s example of “Ethical Action” is taken from Sophocles’ Antigone. In fact, however, Hegel provides us with a trilogy of tragic examples. The first is Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannos; the second, Aeschylus’s Seven against Thebes; Antigone is but the third. Further, just as a dramatic trilogy was followed by a satyr play among the ancients, ethical action’s final moment is taken from Aristophanes’ Ekklesiazousai. These four examples do not form a simple series where (...) each equally expresses the truth of ethical action. Rather, they are increasingly adequate to that truth. (shrink)

This paper discusses recent interpretations of Jean-Paul Sartre's early theory of emotions, in particular his Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions. Despite the great interest that Sartre's approach has generated, most interpretations assume that his approach fails because it appears to be focussed on ‘malformed’, ‘irrational’ or ‘distorted’ emotions. I argue that these criticisms adopt a rationalistic or epistemically biassed perspective on emotions that is wrongly applied to Sartre's text. In my defence of Sartre I show that the directional (...) fit of emotions is not towards an evaluatively loaded world which is independently given and, at best, represented by emotions, but towards a world shaped through the impact of emotions themselves. Sartre's idea of emotions ‘magically transforming’ reality for the subject so that the latter is better able to cope with problematic aspects of practically relevant situations encapsulates the world-shaping capacities of emotions, which are thus not reserved for a restricted class of emotions. Recognition of the transformative powers of emotions will also direct attention away from their seemingly representative elements to their normative and practical aspects and offer a new basis for delineating the criteria for judging them. The plausibility of this position is discussed with reference to some of Sartre's examples, such as fear, sadness and horror, but also with reference to Joan Didion's account of grief in The Year of Magical Thinking. (shrink)

The first evaluation and critique of Hegel's theory of tragedy and comedy, this book also develops an original theory of both genres.

This chapter discusses the comic potential that originates in the way players of digital games take on the dual position of being at once a played self that is internal to the gameworld and a playing self that perceives this world from the outside. I first describe the comic attitude as it is defined within philosophy: as an attitude of distanced and dispassionate reflection towards an incongruity. I then show how the dual position of players during gameplay not only is (...) characterized by incongruities, such as contradictions between the apparent seriousness and the ultimate triviality of in-game actions, but also allows players to dispassionately reflect on these incongruities. I thus argue that digital gameplay entails the inherent possibility of turning players into both a comic object and a laughing subject. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that sensibility‐invariantism about ‘funny’ is defensible, not just as a descriptive hypothesis, but, as a normative position as well. What I aim to do is to make the realist commitments of the sensibility‐invariantist out to be much more tenable than one might initially think them to be. I do so by addressing the two major sources of discontent with sensibility‐invariantism: the observation that discourse about comedy exhibits significant divergence in judgment, and the fact that (...) disagreements about comedy, unlike disagreements about, say, geography, often strike us as fundamentally intractable. (shrink)

This wide-ranging conversation explores the potential of comedy to effect social change; the connections and disconnections between comedy and tragedy; the problem of laughter, humor, and ridicule; and the power of feminist humor.

Dieter Declercq’s Satire, Comedy, and Mental Health (2021) examines the nature and value of satire, critically reviews familiar ways of construing its value, and mounts an argument for understanding satire’s value in terms of the contributions it can make to our mental health. Declercq has much to say about longstanding debates—for example, over whether satire is a powerful political weapon (vs. a waste of political time and energy) and whether satire functions as a catalyst for needed emotional catharsis (vs. (...) merely a welcome distraction). But the most important contribution Satire, Comedy, and Mental Health makes is to open a new line of enquiry about satire—namely, enquiry into the relationship between satire and mental health—thereby widening the debate over satire’s significance and value. Specifically, Declercq argues that satire is most impressive for how it helps us cope with the limits of critique—that is, with our awareness that unjust suffering will persist despite our very best efforts. Critique cannot cure the world because we do not have endless resources to devote to solving all the world’s problems and righting all the world’s wrongs; even if we did, our efforts will not always be successful. Indeed, in some cases, our efforts might make things worse. We are finite and limited beings who simply cannot perfectly design, create, choreograph, and maintain the perfect utopias we so desire. This refreshingly new perspective makes this book an important addition to the scholarly literature on satire. (shrink)

Comedy and philosophy have too often been thought immiscible, a tradition supported by a solemn reading of philosophers such as Plato. A closer look at Plato – and specifically at what may be his most familiar dialogue – the Republic, suggests just the contrary. Far from immiscible, comedy and philosophy are entwined in ways that are mutually illuminating. I argue that a joke in Book V reveals the self-forgetting involved in founding the city in speech, and so illustrates (...) the vitality of self-knowledge to political ventures. Glaucon criticizes the first city in speech as akin to one “of sows”, prompting a new city altogether, and yet the city that he helps to create not only eradicates distinctions between animals and humans but is founded on principles of animal husbandry and described overwhelmingly in animalistic terms. Justice in this city is defined as a minding of one’s own business, but what exactly “one’s own” is expands to accommodate Glaucon’s pleonexia and accompanying tyrannical allowances. Glaucon has forgotten himself. Without a limit – without a restriction on what one’s own is – the city degenerates into a tyranny. Glaucon’s self-forgetting may be a minor, comical incident, but it has significant philosophical consequences, including a radical undercutting of the city in question as well as the distinction between humans and animals. The comical mode employed here suggests that it may be a comical understanding of the self that best supersedes the forgotten self. (shrink)

This essay discusses five main topoi in the Divine Comedy through which teachers might encourage students to explore the question of the Divine Comedy’s treatment of philosophy. These topoi are: (1) The Divine Comedy’s representations in Inferno of noble pagans who are allegorically or historically associated with philosophy or natural reason; (2) its treatment of the relationship between faith and reason and that relationship’s consequences for the text’s understanding of the respective authoritativeness of theology and philosophy; (3) (...) representations in the Divine Comedy that relate to the question of the practical value of philosophical (not to mention theological) speculation; (4) the text’s treatment of the respective merits of practical and contemplative activities; and (5) its implicit defense of philosophy’s authority with respect to ethical and political questions. (shrink)

The only way to be successful now days in every field of life is the effective use of verbal expression. Language serves as a toolkit to inform, reveal, explore, expose, explain, manipulate, exaggerate, intensify, mitigate and what not. It has every hidden potential to serve its users. Significance of this toolkit of language can also be a bravura feature in gaining comic and/or tragic effects in media. The language of the media violates its few communicative principles which can be termed (...) as Gricean cooperative principle, to serve the specific interests via playing upon the common use of language. The present study explores the intricacies involved in any communication to achieve comic effects. For this purpose, Gricean maxims have been investigated thoroughly with the help of Pakistani comedy show “Bulbulay” which is a famous TV series all over the country. The TV series is considered to be popular among the masses due to its different and unique language that is achieved by flouting the maxims in Gricean’s terminology. The study explains the inimitable ways of achieving comic effects in series and also suggests further work on other areas regarding the unusual use of language to achieve desired results. (shrink)

Patrick Downey finds comedy at the heart of the Western philosophical and theological tradition. In Serious Comedy Downey tracks tragedy and comedy from the beginning of Western thought to the twentieth century, beginning with an in-depth examination of Aristotle and three Platonic dialogues: the Republic, the Phaedrus, and the Symposium. In the book's second section Downey argues that the Bible is at heart a comedic narrative and analyzes the philosophical and theological implications of this comedy. In (...) the third section Downey traces comedy and tragedy in classic and modern philosophers such as Machiavelli, Dante, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Kierkegaard. Readers with an interest in classical philosophy and theology, political philosophy, and narrative theory will be particularly interested in this insightful and thoughtful perspective on the Western tradition. (shrink)

Although its subject is the relationship between philosophy and comedy, this essay is neither flippant nor nihilistic. It instead approaches philosophy through themes borrowed from comedy, including chapters on inversion, paradox, madness, nonsense, and the distinction between appearance and reality. Beyond his authorship of two previous books on theories of comedy (Madness, Masks, and Laughter and Split Down the Sides), Glasgow's credentials are not stated. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kenneth R. Seeskin THE COMEDY OF THE GODS IN THE ILIAD "... no animai but man ever laughs." Aristotle, De Partibus Animalium, 673a8-9 No reader of the Iliad can fail to be struck by the great extent to which social relations among the gods resemble those which obtain among men. Zeus, the oldest and strongest of the Olympian deities, rules as an absolute monarchor patriarch. The "council" meetings (...) over which he presides are not unlike those which occur on earth. Like Agamemnon, he must assert his authority from time to time; and, like any mortal king, he must deal with problems relating to jealousy, adultery, dishonesty, and revenge. To the extent that the gods differ from mortal heroes, those differences are similar to the ones which separate mortal heroes and commoners. The gods occupy the highest place on the scale of excellence, beauty, and social status, mortals with divine ancestry occupy the next position, and so on down the line. Although the above picture is accurate in many respects, there is something about it which is bound to leave one cold, for, unlike his mortal heroes, Homer's gods often appear as clowns. One need only recall scenes like Hephaestus' bumbling attempt to wait on the other immortals (1.584 ff.), Hera's seduction of Zeus (14.157 ff.), or the famous theomachy (21.385 ff.) to see that, ironically, humans frequendy are more dignified than the gods they are trying to please. It was scenes like these which caused Longinus, in his essay On the Sublime, to remark that Homer appears to have made his men gods and his gods men (sec. 9). Now any long story is bound to contain comic relief. But for many authors (Shakespeare, for instance), comic relief is supplied by those whose social status is lower than that of the main characters, e.g., grave diggers, nightwatchmen, country bumpkins, or pettythieves. As Aristotle argued in the Poetics (sec. 2 and 5), comedy is an imitation of men worse than the average. In Book 2 of the Iliad, Homer does use Thersites 295 296Philosophy and Literature for comic effect; yet this scene is noteworthy for being the only one in the book which supports Aristotle's contention. In practically every other case, comedy is supplied by characters better than the average: it is supplied by the gods. Moreover, in the few cases where mortal aristocrats are involved in comic situations (e.g., the rambling speeches of Nestor), the teasing tends to be extremely mild. Farce and slapstick are reserved almost exclusively for the inhabitants of Olympus. Plato, for one, was outraged by passages where the gods look ridiculous and wanted them excised from the text. Not surprisingly, there is a tradition of modern scholars who feel a similar sense of outrage. Walter Leaf, for example, maintained that the theomachy is poorly written and thus not the work of Homer.1 Gilbert Murray argued that several of the scenes in question are in bad taste, exemplify the spirit of Milesian skepticism, and, again, are not the work of Homer.2 Wilamowitz constructed an elaborate theory which claimed that these passages are the work of a later rhapsode who probably was associated with Archilochus.3 Finally, George Calhoun, who exposed the flaws of those just mentioned, concluded that such passages show the influence not of a later period of skepticism but of an earlier, less refined period and were composed merely to please Homer's audience.4 Since it is not my purpose to enter the long debate over the authorship and unity of the text, let me state the guiding assumptions of this essay dogmatically. First, the passages in question are not interpolated and serve important artistic functions. Second, for whatever reason Homer decided to include them, their presence raises profound moral and religious questions. From the outset, it is clear that any anthropomorphic conception of the gods will have to fail in one important respect. The gods are immortal, humans are not. Thus even the lowliest human can do something which no god can—risk his life. For all of their quarrels, deceptive schemes, and forays into the thick of the fighting, the gods are... (shrink)