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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.
Immortal Comedy is the first book to 'think' philosophically about the comic phenomenon in general. Although author Agnes Heller had written a book that is both deeply scholarly and meditative on the subject of the comic form in film, literature, and life her writing is eminently approachable. In both its subject and style, Immortal Comedy is a seminal book. In it, Heller takes us on a journey through theories of comedy beginning with classical thought. She then detours through foundational political thinkers who refer to, for instance, laughter and power. We are also introduced to modern systematic approaches to thinking comedy, psychological approaches, and existential approaches. The discerning combination of Heller's individual taste for the pantheon of comedic work and, also, what critics may consider 'less significant' work gives this book a character apart from all others. It is the detail with which Heller makes her discussion, how and where she locates 'the comic,' and probably most significantly her discussion of comedy and our own lives that makes Immortal Comedy a principal book for the entire range of humanities scholars and enthusiasts.
Comedy, Seriously provides a philosophical interpretation of comedy and argues that comedy displays a particular kind of rationality that reflects philosophical thinking. In particular, that comedy is defined not so much by laughter or jokes, but rather the structure of its plot, which is isomorphic with that of the philosophical argument. Comedy allows for the resolution of a conflict and the achievement of well-being and equality through action that follows the comic plot. Moreover, such action is propelled by the 'thinker on stage,' who, as socially and politically oppressed, contributes to the liberation of all and the achievement of the good life. Comedy, therefore, establishes the universal pattern for justice and well-being and allows us to rethink the notion of subjectivity not as the modern isolated subject, but rather as integrated with others through shared action and dialogical involvement.
A Cultural History of Comedy in the Modern Age by Louise Peacock Pdf
Drawing together contributions by scholars from a variety of fields, including theater, film and television, sociology, and visual culture, this volume explores the range and diversity of comedic performance and comic forms in the modern age. It covers a range of forms and examples from 1920 to the present day, including plays, film, television comedy, live comedy, and comedy on social media. It argues that the period covered was marked by an explosion of comic forms and a flowering of comic creativity across a range of media. From the communal watching of silent films at the start of the period, to the use of Twitter and other online platforms to share and comment on comedy, technology has brought about significant changes in its form, consumption, and social effects. As comic forms have shifted and developed, so too have attitudes to what comedy can and cannot do. This study considers its role in entertainment and in provoking consideration of a range of social and political topics. Each chapter takes a different theme as its focus: form, theory, praxis, identities, the body, politics and power, laughter, and ethics. These eight different approaches to comedy add up to an extensive, synoptic coverage of the subject.
Why So Serious: On Philosophy and Comedy by Russell Ford Pdf
The Western philosophical tradition shows a marked fondness for tragedy. From Plato and Aristotle, through German idealism, to contemporary reflections on the murderous violence of the twentieth century, philosophy has often looked to tragedy for resources to make suffering, grief, and death thinkable. But what if showing a preference for tragedy, philosophical thought has unwittingly and unknowingly aligned itself with a form of thinking that accepts injustice without protest? This collection explores possibilities for philosophical thinking that refuses the tragic model of thought, and turns instead to its often-overlooked companion: comedy. Comprising of a series of experiments ranging across the philosophical tradition, the essays in this volume propose to break, or at least suspend, the use of tragedy as an index of truth and philosophical worth. Instead, they explore new conceptions of solidarity, sympathy, critique, and justice. In addition, the essays collected here provide ample reason to believe that philosophical thinking, aligned with comedy, is capable of important and original insights, discoveries, and creations. The prejudicial acceptance of tragic seriousness only impoverishes the life of thought; it can be rejuvenated and renewed by laughter and the comic. This book was originally published as a special issue of Angelaki.
A Philosophy of Comedy on Stage and Screen by Shaun May Pdf
As far as we know, only human beings have a sense of humour – although chimps might laugh when tickled, and dogs respond similarly in play, Seth McFarlane's fan-base is comprised exclusively of humans. Whilst animals and robots might feature as prominent characters in our favourite comic movies, shows and stand-up routines, we have no reason to suspect that their real-life brethren get the joke. Drawing on the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, Shaun May attempts to address this issue – suggesting that there is something distinctive about human beings which grounds our ability to make and comprehend jokes. Guiding the reader through a range of examples, including the films of Charlie Chaplin, the stand-up of Francesca Martinez, the TV show Family Guy and Samuel Beckett's Endgame, he demonstrates that in order to get the joke you have to 'be there'.
First published in 1939, the original blurb reads: We have learned much lately concerning theories of laughter, yet laughter is only what we do about comedy. What is comedy itself? In this work the history of comic instances is combed in the search for the truth about comedy. Today, when laughter is stifled in so many countries, an exposition of comedy shows it to have a universal and necessary character. Comedy, as its natures reveals, is one criterion of the state of human culture; it is highly contemporary and requires freedom – but freedom for adventure, not for routine. After a chapter devoted to the explanation of a logical theory of comedy, the modern comedians are examined, and the humour of every one, from the Marx Brothers to surrealism, from Gertrude Stein to Mickey Mouse, from James Joyce to Charlie Chaplin, is shown to be a constant, inherent in the same set of unchanging conditions.
The Comic Imagination in Modern African Literature and Cinema by Maik Nwosu Pdf
This book is a seminal study that significantly expands the interdisciplinary discourse on African literature and cinema by exploring Africa’s under-visited carnivalesque poetics of laughter. Focusing on modern African literature as well as contemporary African cinema, particularly the direct-to-video Nigerian film industry known as Nollywood, the book examines the often-neglected aesthetics of the African comic imagination. In modern African literature, which sometimes creatively traces a path back to African folklore, and in Nollywood — with its aesthetic relationship to Onitsha Market Literature — the pertinent styles range from comic simplicitas to comic magnitude with the facilitation of language, characterization, and plot by a poetics of laughter or lightness as an important aspect of style. The poetics at work is substantially carnivalesque, a comic preference or tendency that is attributable, in different contexts, to a purposeful comic sensibility or an unstructured but ingrained or virtual comic mode. In the best instances of this comic vision, the characteristic laughter or lightness can facilitate a revaluation or reappreciation of the world, either because of the aesthetic structure of signification or the consequent chain of signification. This referentiality or progressive signification is an important aspect of the poetics of laughter as the African comic imagination variously reflects, across genres, both the festival character of comedy and its pedagogical value. This book marks an important contribution to African literature, postcolonial literature, world literature, comic imagination, poetics, critical theory, and African cinema.
This collection of essays examines the life and thought of Agnes Heller, who rose to international acclaim as a Marxist dissident in Eastern Europe, then went on to develop one of the most comprehensive oeuvres in contemporary philosophy, putting forward a distinctive ethical theory and analyses of a vast range of topics covering most every philosophical area. Here, philosophers, sociologists, journalists, and political scientists contextualize, compare and assess different elements of Heller's work; the collection as a whole highlights relevant shifts within that work as well as its intrinsic consistency. Essays in the collection address the relationship between philosophy, political practice and everyday life, Heller's theory of modernity and her ethical theory, her recent scholarship on comedy and the Biblical book of Genesis, her theories of radical needs and radical politics, her aesthetic theory, and questions about her relationship to feminist theory. The collection includes Heller's reflections on the collected essays, as well as an early essay on her mentor LukOcs that exposes her own steadfast engagement with certain practical and philosophical issues throughout her life's work.
Rethinking Philosophers' Responsibility by Lydia Amir Pdf
Calling on philosophers as the custodians of rationality to reconsider their responsibility toward their communities and the state of civilization at large, this book considers philosophy to be a practical discipline. Largely foreign to philosophers and non-philosophers alike, this conception of philosophy discloses the relevance of its unique contributions to contemporary society. The book offers a compelling and accessible analysis of philosophy also in relation to religion, psychology, the New Age Movement, and globalization, and exemplifies through a wide range of current problems how philosophers can fulfil their responsibility. Its argument that responsibility lies where one is capable of doing what is needed, and even more so, when no one else can do it, targets philosophers. However, its innovative study of contemporary philosophy coupled with its original contributions to the problems at hand will engage academics and students from other disciplines, as well as a general readership.
Irony's Antics marks a major intervention into the underexplored role of the comic in German letters. At the book's heart is the relationship between the comic and irony. Weitzman argues that in the early twentieth century, irony, a key figure for the German Romantics, reemerged from its relegation to "nonsense" in a way that both rethought Romantic irony and dramatically extended its reach.
One Half of Robertson Davies by Robertson Davies Pdf
A collection of speeches on literature, academia, and more by the “extremely entertaining novelist and public speaker” (The Washington Post). These public addresses by the acclaimed Canadian man of letters and New York Times-bestselling author Robertson Davies provides portraits of literary personalities, advice on writers and writing, and comments on academia and the modern world. Whether giving advice to schoolgirls, discussing the Age of Aquarius as seen by alchemists, exploring Jungian psychology in the theater and insanity in literature, or telling us how to design a haunted house, Davies brings to all his subjects the same intensity and marvelous craftsmanship that are the hallmarks of his fictional creations.