International Studies in Humour

Volume 2, Issue 1 (2013) ISSN 2052-3475

cover of the issue front page back of front page journal’s link page

EDITORIAL:

The First Issue of the New Year.

Ephraim Nissan, London [editorial] (pp. 1–2)

REGULAR ARTICLES:

EPISTEMOLOGY / HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY:

A Naturoid-Theoretic Analysis of a Piedmontese Joke from 1915:

un tram che scansa la gente (“A Tram Sidestepping People”).

The Trolleybus Has Come to Town, First Introduced

in a Supposed Numskulls Town of All Places.

Ephraim Nissan, London [full paper] (pp. 3–23)

Keywords: Naturoid; Observation level; Essential performance (in naturoid theory); Technoid; Transportation systems; Numskull towns;

Geographical stereotypes; Italy (early 19th century);

Mock-ascription of causality; Massimo Negrotti; pupils’ howlers; technoid metaphors.

PSYCHOLOGY:

Extreme Fear of Being Laughed At: Components of Gelotophobia.

Willibald Ruch, Claudia Harzer, and René T. Proyer, Zurich

[full paper] (pp. 24–42)

Keywords: Clinical psychology; Phobia; Personality; Five-Factor Model Gelotophobia (fear of being laughed at); Gelotophilia (joy of being laughed at); Katagelasticism (joy of laughing at others).

FOLKLORE STUDIES:

Considerations about the Pantomime of the Orange and

the Unleavened Bread Within a Judaeo-Spanish Folktale.

Ephraim Nissan, London [full paper] (pp. 43–86)

Keywords: Folktales; Communication by signs; Symbols; Sephardic culture; Jewish studies; Jewish Tale Type 922 *C; AT 924A; Interfaith relations; Disputation tales; Eastern Mediterranean; Netherlands (Early Modern); House of Orange; Rome (Pre-1870); Portugal; Rounded Earth; Flat Earth; Food; Citruses (names for); Matzo bread; Passover; Ignoramus wins a context; Comedy of Errors; Misunderstanding; Social classes; Butcher; Romanesco poetry (sonnets, Cesare Pascarella, Giuseppe Gioachino Belli), Puns.

REVIEW ESSAYS:

PRAGMATICS:

The Pragmatics of Humour Across Discourse Domains:

About a Book by Marta Dynel.

(About: Marta Dynel, ed., The Pragmatics of Humour across Discourse Domains, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2011.)

Magdalena Biegajło, Warsaw [full paper] (pp. 87–99)

Keywords: Pragmatics; Style; Conversational humour; Public discourse;

Anticipating irony; irony production; irony reception; Oppositional irony; Echoic irony; Conferred irony; Dramatic irony; Ironic belief; Meaning deviation process; Context dependence; Cancellability; Cognition; Surrealist irony; Reversal irony; Syllables; Morphemes; Puns; Syntactic ambiguity; William Shakespeare; Register humour; Corpora; Russian jokes; Gender; Romanian jokes; Ethnic humour; Anti-proverbs; Frame; Keying; Carnival; Online sports journalism; Quasi-conversations; Workplace; Parody; Monty Python; Sitcoms; Failure & Unhappiness; Woody Allen; Advertising; Persuasion; Legal discourse; Courtroom humour; Translation.

ZOOLOGICAL IMAGINARY:

Imagined Elephants in the History of European Ideas:

Varejka’s Pataphysical Way to the Subject.

(About: Pascal Varejka, Singularité de l’éléphant d’Europe. Paris: Ginkgo, 2007.)

Ephraim Nissan, London

[full paper] (pp. 100–177)

Keywords: Pataphysique; Zoological imaginary; Symbolism; Christian symbolism; Jewish studies; Humour in scholarly exposition.

HISTORY OF POLITICAL CARTOONS:

Exploring Two Histories of American Political Cartoons.

With a Digression: Late-19th-Century Treatments of the Theme “Immigrants from Europe’s Gutters” as Conveyed Visually, vs. Its Mocking by Parroting in Immigrant Literature (Tractate America).

(About: Donald Dewey, The Art of Ill Will: The Story of American Political Cartoons. New York, NY: New York University Press, 2007;

Stephen Hess and Sandy Northrop, American Political Cartoons: From 1754 to 2010, Piscataway, NJ: Transaction, 2011.)

Ephraim Nissan, London

[full paper] (pp. 178–244)

Keywords: United States (history, political cartoons); Immigrants (as perceived vs. self-perceived or in mock-self-perception: Gerson Rosenzweig parroting a canard in Ch. 1 of Tractate America).

BOOK REVIEWS: :

Estonia and Poland, Creativity and Tradition in Cultural Communication, Volume 1, Jokes and their Relations, edited by Liisi Laineste, Dorota Brzozowska and Wladysław Chłopicki (Tartu, Estonia: ELM Scholarly Press, 2012).

Christie Davies, Reading

[review] (pp. 245–250)

Keywords: Poland; Estonia; Soviet Union; Communism, post-Communist era; Gender (men’s jokes, women’s humour).

Several reviews will be posted soon.