Laughing matters : a serious look at humour

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Laughing matters : a serious look at humour

edited by John Durant and Jonathan Miller

Longman Scientific & Technical, 1988

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Includes index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

Why do we find certain people and certain situations funny? Why do we laugh? Why do we pay people to make us laugh? In short, what is humour for? These are some of the questions dealt with in this book, which is based on a series of lectures given under the Presidency of Dr Jonathan Miller at the 1987 Annual Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. It aims to present a serious but amusing look at humour by scientists and scholars, cartoonists and comedians.

Table of Contents

  • Introduction, John Durant
  • jokes and joking - a serious laughing matter, Jonathan Miller
  • neurophsychological insights into humour, Hiram Brownell and Howard Gardner
  • Freud's theory of humour, wit and jokes, Michael Neve
  • the Irish joke as a social phenomenon, Christie Davies
  • a look at children's humour, Nicholas Tucker
  • political cartooning, Nicholas Carland
  • Buster Keaton among the elements, Robert Goff
  • the importance of being foolish, Richard Ward
  • humour as a vehicle for unconventional ideas, Alexander Kohn.

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