Pleasure of Fools

Pleasure of Fools PDF Author: Jure Gantar
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 9780773528925
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
"Men cannot laugh heartily without showing their teeth," quipped Samuel Butler. From St Paul to Descartes to Adorno, scholars and writers have questioned the ethics of laughter - any laughter. In The Pleasure of Fools, Jure Gantar wrestles with our moral right to laugh and the limitations of contemporary critical approaches.The crucial question is not whether or not there is offensive laughter but whether or not all laughter offends. Almost everyone has felt the bitter stab of malicious laughter and knows that laughter can be cruel, but it is more difficult to decide if there is also laughter that can never insult. Through a reading of Aristophanes, Rabelais, Molière, Fielding, and Rostand, Victorian nonsense poetry, and the philosophical texts of Plato, Dante, and More, Gantar explores the reasons for critics' prejudice against comedy, the specific position of laughter in various utopian societies, and self-deprecating laughter and role of the comedian as its primary producer. His conclusions contradict basic postmodern thought and contribute to current debates on the epistemological nature of criticism.

Pleasure of Fools

Pleasure of Fools PDF Author: Jure Gantar
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 9780773528925
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
"Men cannot laugh heartily without showing their teeth," quipped Samuel Butler. From St Paul to Descartes to Adorno, scholars and writers have questioned the ethics of laughter - any laughter. In The Pleasure of Fools, Jure Gantar wrestles with our moral right to laugh and the limitations of contemporary critical approaches.The crucial question is not whether or not there is offensive laughter but whether or not all laughter offends. Almost everyone has felt the bitter stab of malicious laughter and knows that laughter can be cruel, but it is more difficult to decide if there is also laughter that can never insult. Through a reading of Aristophanes, Rabelais, Molière, Fielding, and Rostand, Victorian nonsense poetry, and the philosophical texts of Plato, Dante, and More, Gantar explores the reasons for critics' prejudice against comedy, the specific position of laughter in various utopian societies, and self-deprecating laughter and role of the comedian as its primary producer. His conclusions contradict basic postmodern thought and contribute to current debates on the epistemological nature of criticism.

The Folly of Fools

The Folly of Fools PDF Author: Robert Trivers
Publisher: Basic Books (AZ)
ISBN: 0465027555
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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Book Description
Explores the author's theorized evolutionary basis for self-deception, which he says is tied to group conflict, courtship, neurophysiology, and immunology, but can be negated by awareness of it and its results.

Ship of Fools

Ship of Fools PDF Author: Katherine Anne Porter
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1504003535
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 453

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Book Description
This “dazzling” National Book Award finalist set aboard an ocean liner in 1931 reflects the passions and prejudices that sparked World War II (San Francisco Chronicle). August 1931. An ocean liner bound for Germany sets out from the Mexican port city of Veracruz. The ship’s first-class passengers include an idealistic young American painter and her lover; a Spanish dance troupe with a sideline in larceny; an elderly German couple and their fat, seasick bulldog; and a boisterous band of Cuban medical students. As the Vera journeys across the Atlantic, the incidents and intrigues of several dozen passengers and crew members come into razor-sharp focus. The result is a richly drawn portrait of the human condition in all its complexity and a mesmerizing snapshot of a world drifting toward disaster. Written over a span of twenty years and based on the diary Katherine Anne Porter kept during a similar ocean voyage, Ship of Fools was the bestselling novel of 1962 and the inspiration for an Academy Award–winning film starring Vivien Leigh. It is a masterpiece of American literature as captivating today as when it was first published more than a half century ago. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Katherine Anne Porter, including rare photos from the University of Maryland Libraries.

Rabelais and His World

Rabelais and His World PDF Author: Mikhail Mikhaĭlovich Bakhtin
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 9780253203410
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 520

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Book Description
This classic work by the Russian philosopher and literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975) examines popular humor and folk culture in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. One of the essential texts of a theorist who is rapidly becoming a major reference in contemporary thought, Rabelais and His World is essential reading for anyone interested in problems of language and text and in cultural interpretation.

Fools Are Everywhere

Fools Are Everywhere PDF Author: Beatrice K. Otto
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226640914
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 444

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Book Description
In this lively work, Beatrice K. Otto takes us on a journey around the world in search of one of the most colorful characters in history—the court jester. Though not always clad in cap and bells, these witty, quirky characters crop up everywhere, from the courts of ancient China and the Mogul emperors of India to those of medieval Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the Americas. With a wealth of anecdotes, jokes, quotations, epigraphs, and illustrations (including flip art), Otto brings to light little-known jesters, highlighting their humanizing influence on people with power and position and placing otherwise remote historical figures in a more idiosyncratic, intimate light. Most of the work on the court jester has concentrated on Europe; Otto draws on previously untranslated classical Chinese writings and other sources to correct this bias and also looks at jesters in literature, mythology, and drama. Written with wit and humor, Fools Are Everywhere is the most comprehensive look at these roguish characters who risked their necks not only to mock and entertain but also to fulfill a deep and widespread human and social need.

Fools

Fools PDF Author: Joan Silber
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
ISBN: 9781838956615
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description


Humorous Political Stunts

Humorous Political Stunts PDF Author: Majken Jul Sørensen
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 9188061019
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 607

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Book Description
A group of anti-conscription activists break into a prison, demanding to be jailed together with their friend already locked up because of his beliefs. Clowns from the rebel clown army mimic police sent to control political protests. Visiting Santas hand out presents taken from shop shelves without the approval of the shopping centre management. These are examples of humorous political stunts - public actions, hoaxes and happenings that confront systems of power. This book contains many amusing stories of such stunts, showing the boldness and creativity of the activists. Interviews and documents are used to show how humour can facilitate outreach, mobilisation and a culture of resistance. Humorous Political Stunts combines insights from the fields of nonviolence and humour studies and makes theoretical contributions to each area.

A Trap for Fools

A Trap for Fools PDF Author: Amanda Cross
Publisher: Boxtree
ISBN: 1760780014
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 137

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Book Description
Campus security found the body of Canfield Adams early on Sunday morning, seven stories below the open window of his office. To the police there is one easy assumption, but anyone who knew Canfield knows he would never have jumped. University officials ask literature Professor and amateur sleuth Kate Fanslar to investigate the death of their precious professor, and she find a myriad of people, both on and off campus, who could have pushed him. However, Kate suspects the university has an ulterior motive . . . . . . and she herself is not sure she wants to succeed, for the murderer may be someone she cares about, a student, a colleague, a friend? Taking its name from a Rudyard Kipling poem and littered with his verses throughout, A Trap for Fools is a novel about overcoming adversity, one of Amanda Cross' latest and best mysteries. 'If by some cruel oversight you haven't discovered Amanda Cross, you have an uncommon pleasure in store for you' New York Times Book Review

The Essential Erasmus

The Essential Erasmus PDF Author: Desiderius Erasmus
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0452009723
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
In his own day a center of controversy, in the four hundred years since his death known too often solely as an apostle of mockery and irreverence, Erasmus can be seen today in a new light—as a humanist whose concen is at once contemporary and Christian. The Essential Erasmus is the first single volume in English to show the full spectrum of this Renaissance man's thought, which is no less profound because it is expressed with the grace, wit, and ironic detachment only a great writer can achieve. Contains the full text of In Praise of Folly

Fools Rush in

Fools Rush in PDF Author: Janice A. Thompson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Single women
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Bella, an Italian from New Jersey whose family moved to Texas, must battle her feelings for a deejay and learn how to run the family's wedding planning business after she books a country and western theme wedding.