Author: Christie Davies
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 9780765800961
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272
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Book Description
The Mirth of Nations is a social and historical study of jokes told in the principal English-speaking countries. It is based on use of archives and other primary sources, including old and rare joke books. Davies makes detailed comparisons between the humor of specific pairs of nations and ethnic and regional groups. In this way, he achieves an appreciation of the unique characteristics of the humor of each nation or group. A tightly argued book, The Mirth of Nations uses the comparative method to undermine existing theories of humor, which are rooted in notions of hostility, conflict, and superiority, and derive ultimately from Hobbes and Freud. Instead Davies argues that humor merely plays with aggression and with rule-breaking, and that the form this play takes is determined by social structures and intellectual traditions. It is not related to actual conflicts between groups. In particular, Davies convincingly argues that Jewish humor and jokes are neither uniquely nor overwhelmingly self-mocking as many writers since Freud have suggested. Rather Jewish jokes, like Scottish humor and jokes are the product of a strong cultural tradition of analytical thinking and intelligent self-awareness. The volume shows that the forty-year popularity of the Polish joke cycle in America was not a product of any special negative feeling towards Poles. Jokes are not serious and are not a form of determined aggression against others or against one's own group. The Mirth of Nations is readable as well as revisionist. It is written with great clarity and puts forward difficult and complex arguments without jargon in an accessible manner. Its rich use of examples of all kinds of humor entertains the reader, who will enjoy a great variety of jokes while being enlightened by the author's careful explanations of why particular sets of jokes exist and are immensely popular. The book will appeal to general readers as well as those in cultural studies.
Author: Christie Davies
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 1412837839
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 265
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Book Description
The Mirth of Nations is a social and historical study of jokes told in the principal English-speaking countries. It is based on use of archives and other primary sources, including old and rare joke books. Davies makes detailed comparisons between the humor of specific pairs of nations and ethnic and regional groups. In this way, he achieves an appreciation of the unique characteristics of the humor of each nation or group. A tightly argued book, The Mirth of Nations uses the comparative method to undermine existing theories of humor, which are rooted in notions of hostility, conflict, and superiority, and derive ultimately from Hobbes and Freud. Instead Davies argues that humor merely plays with aggression and with rule-breaking, and that the form this play takes is determined by social structures and intellectual traditions. It is not related to actual conflicts between groups. In particular, Davies convincingly argues that Jewish humor and jokes are neither uniquely nor overwhelmingly self-mocking as many writers since Freud have suggested. Rather Jewish jokes, like Scottish humor and jokes are the product of a strong cultural tradition of analytical thinking and intelligent self-awareness. The volume shows that the forty-year popularity of the Polish joke cycle in America was not a product of any special negative feeling towards Poles. Jokes are not serious and are not a form of determined aggression against others or against one’s own group. The Mirth of Nations is readable as well as revisionist. It is written with great clarity and puts forward difficult and complex arguments without jargon in an accessible manner. Its rich use of examples of all kinds of humor entertains the reader, who will enjoy a great variety of jokes while being enlightened by the author’s careful explanations of why particular sets of jokes exist and are immensely popular. The book will appeal to general readers as well as those in cultural studies.
Author: Christie Davies
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253223024
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 328
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Book Description
Jokes and Targets takes up an appealing and entertaining topic—the social and historical origins of jokes about familiar targets such as rustics, Jewish spouses, used car salesmen, and dumb blondes. Christie Davies explains why political jokes flourished in the Soviet Union, why Europeans tell jokes about American lawyers but not about their own lawyers, and why sex jokes often refer to France rather than to other countries. One of the world's leading experts on the study of humor, Davies provides a wide-ranging and detailed study of the jokes that make up an important part of everyday conversation.
Author: Gertrude Himmelfarb
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0375704108
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 210
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Book Description
From one of today's most respected historians and cultural critics comes a new book examining the gulf in American society--a division that cuts across class, racial, ethnic, political and sexual lines. One side originated in the tradition of republican virtue, the other in the counterculture of the late 1960s. Himmelfarb argues that, while the latter generated the dominant culture of today-particularly in universities, journalism, television, and film--a "dissident culture" continues to promote the values of family, a civil society, sexual morality, privacy, and patriotism. Proposing democratic remedies for our moral and cultural diseases, Himmelfarb concludes that it is a tribute to Americans that we remain "one nation" even as we are divided into "two cultures."
Author: Christie Davies
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 9780765802231
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 294
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Book Description
In the last half of the twentieth century, a once respectable and religious Britain became a seriously violent and dishonest society, one in which person and property were at risk, family breakdown was ubiquitous, and drug and alcohol abuse was rising. The Strange Death of Moral Britain demonstrates in detail the roots of Britain's decline. It also shows how a society, strongly Protestant in both morality and identity, became one of the most secular societies in the world. The culture wars about abortion, capital punishment, and homosexuality, which have convulsed the United States, have little meaning in Britain where there is neither a moral majority nor any indigenous emphasis on rights. In the period when Britain had a strong national and religious identity, defense of this identity led to legal persecution of male homosexuals. As Britain's identity crumbled, homosexuality ceased to be an important issue for most people. Similarly, all the pressing questions on abortion, capital punishment, and homosexuality were settled permanently on a purely utilitarian basis in Britain, where all sources of moral argument are weak. The ending of the death penalty marked the decline of the influence of the official hierarchies of church and state, the Church of England, the armed forces, and their representative, the Conservative Party. The Strange Death of Moral Britain is a study of moral change, secularization, loss of identity, and the growth of deviant behavior in Britain in the twentieth century. Based on detailed scholarship, it is tightly argued and clearly written with a minimum of jargon. It will be of interest to scholars in religious studies and British social history, and to a general reading public concerned with timely moral controversies.
Author: Charles Lassalle
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Comparative linguistics
Languages : en
Pages : 452
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Book Description
Author: John Andrews
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : England
Languages : en
Pages : 510
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Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : World history
Languages : en
Pages : 330
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Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Quotations, English
Languages : en
Pages : 1318
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Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : World history
Languages : en
Pages : 336
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Book Description
