Freedom in Laughter

Freedom in Laughter PDF Author: Malcolm Frierson
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 1438479077
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
"In this groundbreaking study, author Malcolm Frierson moves comedy from the margins to the center of the American Civil Rights Movements. Freedom in Laughter: Dick Gregory, Bill Cosby, and the Civil Rights Movement reveals how stand-up comedians Dick Gregory and Bill Cosby used their increasing mainstream success to advance political issues, albeit differently. After exploring Gregory's and Cosby's adolescent experiences in St. Louis and Philadelphia, respectively, Frierson juxtaposes the comedians' diverging humor and activism. The fiery Gregory focused on the politics of race, something that won him respectability at the expense of his career in the long term. Cosby focused on the politics of respectability and catapulted to television and film stardom, although militant blacks repeatedly questioned his image. Yet both, Frierson argues, carried the aims of the black struggle for freedom. An epilogue considers the comedians' post-civil rights era trajectories. Accessibly written and peppered with Gregory's and Cosby's original material, Freedom in Laughter may be enjoyed by academics, history buffs, and anyone interested in American popular culture"--

Freedom in Laughter

Freedom in Laughter PDF Author: Malcolm Frierson
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 1438479077
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
"In this groundbreaking study, author Malcolm Frierson moves comedy from the margins to the center of the American Civil Rights Movements. Freedom in Laughter: Dick Gregory, Bill Cosby, and the Civil Rights Movement reveals how stand-up comedians Dick Gregory and Bill Cosby used their increasing mainstream success to advance political issues, albeit differently. After exploring Gregory's and Cosby's adolescent experiences in St. Louis and Philadelphia, respectively, Frierson juxtaposes the comedians' diverging humor and activism. The fiery Gregory focused on the politics of race, something that won him respectability at the expense of his career in the long term. Cosby focused on the politics of respectability and catapulted to television and film stardom, although militant blacks repeatedly questioned his image. Yet both, Frierson argues, carried the aims of the black struggle for freedom. An epilogue considers the comedians' post-civil rights era trajectories. Accessibly written and peppered with Gregory's and Cosby's original material, Freedom in Laughter may be enjoyed by academics, history buffs, and anyone interested in American popular culture"--

Freedom from the Free Will

Freedom from the Free Will PDF Author: Dimitris Vardoulakis
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438462417
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 214

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Book Description
Many of Kafka's narratives place their heroes in situations of confinement. Gregor Samsa is locked in his room in the Metamorphosis, and the land surveyor in The Castle is stuck in the village unable either to leave or to gain access to the castle. Dimitris Vardoulakis argues that Kafka constructs these plots of confinement in order to laugh at his heroes' futile attempts to express their will. In this way, Kafka emerges as a critic of the free will and as a proponent of a different kind of freedom: one focused within the confines of one's experience and mediated by one's circumstances. Vardoulakis contends that his sense of humor is the key to understanding Kafka as a political thinker. Laughter, in this account, is the tool used to deconstruct power. By placing Kafka in dialogue with philosophy and political theory, Vardoulakis shows that Kafka can give us invaluable insights into how to be free—and how to laugh.

Laughter

Laughter PDF Author: Anca Parvulescu
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262514745
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 227

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Book Description
Uncovering an archive of laughter, from the forbidden giggle to the explosive guffaw. Most of our theories of laughter are not concerned with laughter. Rather, their focus is the laughable object, whether conceived of as the comic, the humorous, jokes, the grotesque, the ridiculous, or the ludicrous. In Laughter, Anca Parvulescu proposes a return to the materiality of the burst of laughter itself. She sets out to uncover an archive of laughter, inviting us to follow its rhythms and listen to its tones. Historically, laughter—especially the passionate burst of laughter—has often been a faux pas. Manuals for conduct, abetted by philosophical treatises and literary and visual texts, warned against it, offering special injunctions to ladies to avoid jollity that was too boisterous. Returning laughter to the history of the passions, Parvulescu anchors it at the point where the history of the grimacing face meets the history of noise. In the civilizing process that leads to laughter's “falling into disrepute,” as Nietzsche famously put it, we can see the formless, contorted face in laughter being slowly corrected into a calm, social smile. How did the twentieth century laugh? Parvulescu points to a gallery of twentieth-century laughers and friends of laughter, arguing that it is through Georges Bataille that the century laughed its most distinct laugh. In Bataille's wake, laughter becomes the passion at the heart of poststructuralism. Looking back at the century from this vantage point, Parvulescu revisits four of its most challenging projects: modernism, the philosophical avant-gardes, feminism, and cinema. The result is an overview of the twentieth century as seen through the laughs that burst at some of its most convoluted junctures.

Liberty, Laughter, and Tears; Reflections of Comedy and Tragedy to Human Freedom

Liberty, Laughter, and Tears; Reflections of Comedy and Tragedy to Human Freedom PDF Author: Horace Meyer Kallen
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Comic, The
Languages : en
Pages : 402

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Book Description


The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting PDF Author: Milan Kundera
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0063290693
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
"An absolutely dazzling entertainment. . . . Arousing on every level—political, erotic, intellectual, and above all, humorous." —Newsweek "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting calls itself a novel, although it is part fairy tale, part literary criticism, part political tract, part musicology, and part autobiography. It can call itself whatever it wants to, because the whole is genius." —New York Times Rich in its stories, characters, and imaginative range, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting is the novel that brought Milan Kundera his first big international success in the late 1970s. Like all his work, it is valuable for far more than its historical implications. In seven wonderfully integrated parts, different aspects of human existence are magnified and reduced, reordered and emphasized, newly examined, analyzed, and experienced.

Laughter and Liberation

Laughter and Liberation PDF Author: Harvey Mindess
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351509659
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Laughter and Liberation is based on the idea that humor is an agent of psychological liberation. Since we are able to include every kind of wit and humor under the umbrella of this thesis, it amounts to an informal, comprehensive theory of the ludicrous. Briefly put, the theory proposes that the most fundamental function of humor is its power to release us from the inhibitions and restrictions under which we live our daily lives.The quest for laughter is as old as man himself Egyptian pharaohs and Roman emperors went to great lengths to amuse themselves, as did the monarchs of medieval Europe with court jesters. Our speech and literature abound with references to humor such as: "Laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone," "He who laughs last laughs best," "All the world loves a clown," "Laugh if you are wise," and "A good laugh is sunshine in the house."In Laughter and Liberation, Harvey Mindess tells us how laughter and our sense of humor work. He gives us the background of several well-known humorists Steve Allen, Richard Armour, Sholom Aleichem and explains his theory of how and why they have become expert in making others laugh.

Liberty, Laughter, and Tears

Liberty, Laughter, and Tears PDF Author: Horace Meyer Kallen
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Comic, The
Languages : en
Pages : 438

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Book Description


Queens of Sheba

Queens of Sheba PDF Author: Jessica L. Hagan
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786825112
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 61

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Book Description
Winner of the Untapped Award 2018. Then they give unrequested information about a gap year, in an orphanage, in The Congo, even though I'm from St Lucia and I don't like children! Turned away from a nightclub for being “too black”, four women take to the stage with their own explosive true stories. The music and the misogyny, the dancing and the drinking, the women and the (white) men. Loosely based on the DSRKT nightspot incident of 2015, Queens of Sheba tells the hilarious, moving and uplifting stories of four passionate Black women battling everyday misogynoir – where sexism meets racism.

Laughter and Liberation

Laughter and Liberation PDF Author: Mindness, Harvey
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 1412844053
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description


Subversive Laughter

Subversive Laughter PDF Author: Ronald Scott Jenkins
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : ar
Pages : 256

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Book Description
These vivid portraits uncover a profound reason for the universal appeal of comedy.