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Delivery rates and Return policy On Humour Paperback – 31 May 2002
by
Simon Critchley
(Author)
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Does humour make us human, or do the cats and dogs laugh along with us? On Humour is a fascinating, beautifully written and funny book on what humour can tell us about being human. Simon Critchley skilfully probes some of the most perennial but least understood aspects of humour, such as our tendency to laugh at animals and our bodies, why we mock death with comedy and why we think it's funny when people act like machines. He also looks at the darker side of humour, as rife in sexism and racism and argues that it is important for reminding us of people we would rather not be.
- Print length144 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication date31 May 2002
- ISBN-101848164270
- ISBN-13978-0415251211
Product description
About the Author
Simon Critchley is Professor of Philosophy and Director for the Centre of Theoretical Studies at the University of Essex. He is the author of Ethics-Politics-Subjectivity (1999) and Very LittleAlmost Nothing (Routledge, 1997). His most recent book is Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (2001).
Product details
- ASIN : 0415251214
- Language : English
- Paperback : 144 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1848164270
- ISBN-13 : 978-0415251211
- Customer reviews:
Customer reviews
4.7 out of 5 stars
4.7 out of 5
18 global ratings
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Top reviews from other countries
Belz
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great place to start
Reviewed in the United States on 26 August 2017Verified Purchase
Great place to start. I've used this as a textbook for my Comedy Theory course for many years, and I recommend it to anyone trying to understand why people laugh. (Please take with a grain of salt the one-star review from Christopher Gontar. If you google his name, he's left a one-star review for literally every comedy theory book. Not sure why!)
3 people found this helpful
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opus
3.0 out of 5 stars
Very true but not necessarily funny
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 April 2013Verified Purchase
As with Free Will (a subject I most recently wrote about here) Humour is something we all recognise, but when forced to describe come up lacking. Certainly all attempts to explain jokes fail which is perhaps why the best part of this book are the good jokes (The Telephone Joke and the one about Attila the Hun).
Humour seems to have physical boundary which is why I narrowly escaped an assault when the German I was joking with failed to see my light-heartedness and why jokes that once made sense sometimes no longer seem witty (say anything from Morecombe and Wise). Does anyone now find Chaplin funny? Has there ever been a decent female comedian? - and consider how someone like Jim Jefferies, who perhaps does not even have the best of verbal deliveries is so observant of human nature as he manages to say what one always somehow felt was the case but had not managed to find the words to express the thought. Why is it that Kenneth Williams giving a lecture as a Professor of Archaeology is funny yet Peter Cushing giving a lecture as a Professor of Anthroplogy isn't, and yet on reflection Cushing is ridiculous as Van Helsing lecturing the Chinese on Vampires (that really should be funny!) whereas Williams as Professor Crump, getting his notes in a muddle and finding (as a result) to his extreme embarrasement that the endings of his sentences have unintened sexual connotations (and which the audience seem to enjoy) should be the stuff of nightmares.
I always thought that jokes aimed at national stereotypes (apart from being largely true) far from being a sign of hatred acted as a sign of inclusivity - we don't make jokes about - say, Kenyans or Thais, but then we have little to do with those nations. Perhaps for that reason I now find Sacha Baron Cohen's ridiculing of Khazaks beneath contempt; nasty, unfair and cruel.
Unlike Critchley I still find the Pythons funny, especially the Jokes about Philosophers. So why does Critchley balk at the Python Jokes which he finds 'racist' and 'sexist' but not - so it seems - about dim-witted soccer-players or Nazis. Seems to me that the PC squad may have got to him - for to place a category beyond humour is to render it sacred - recall Muggeridge and The Bishop huffing and puffing about surely the funniest British film ever made, where they entirely failed to see the joke, which was not in any event about their own sacred cow - nevertheless what else is one to suspect from Britain's leading Continental Philosopher. Lighten up Critchley I would say, which is indeed what he rightly encourages in the last few pages.
Humour seems to have physical boundary which is why I narrowly escaped an assault when the German I was joking with failed to see my light-heartedness and why jokes that once made sense sometimes no longer seem witty (say anything from Morecombe and Wise). Does anyone now find Chaplin funny? Has there ever been a decent female comedian? - and consider how someone like Jim Jefferies, who perhaps does not even have the best of verbal deliveries is so observant of human nature as he manages to say what one always somehow felt was the case but had not managed to find the words to express the thought. Why is it that Kenneth Williams giving a lecture as a Professor of Archaeology is funny yet Peter Cushing giving a lecture as a Professor of Anthroplogy isn't, and yet on reflection Cushing is ridiculous as Van Helsing lecturing the Chinese on Vampires (that really should be funny!) whereas Williams as Professor Crump, getting his notes in a muddle and finding (as a result) to his extreme embarrasement that the endings of his sentences have unintened sexual connotations (and which the audience seem to enjoy) should be the stuff of nightmares.
I always thought that jokes aimed at national stereotypes (apart from being largely true) far from being a sign of hatred acted as a sign of inclusivity - we don't make jokes about - say, Kenyans or Thais, but then we have little to do with those nations. Perhaps for that reason I now find Sacha Baron Cohen's ridiculing of Khazaks beneath contempt; nasty, unfair and cruel.
Unlike Critchley I still find the Pythons funny, especially the Jokes about Philosophers. So why does Critchley balk at the Python Jokes which he finds 'racist' and 'sexist' but not - so it seems - about dim-witted soccer-players or Nazis. Seems to me that the PC squad may have got to him - for to place a category beyond humour is to render it sacred - recall Muggeridge and The Bishop huffing and puffing about surely the funniest British film ever made, where they entirely failed to see the joke, which was not in any event about their own sacred cow - nevertheless what else is one to suspect from Britain's leading Continental Philosopher. Lighten up Critchley I would say, which is indeed what he rightly encourages in the last few pages.
2 people found this helpful
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Ross K
3.0 out of 5 stars
Complicated but needed
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 31 January 2014Verified Purchase
It's incredibly dry and hard to grasp. It's a very in depth analysis of comedy about how and why we laugh. I didn't enjoy it particular but some of the concepts were interesting. It's not very accessible to understanding comedy theories if you're starting out as a comedy scholar.
Still, it's definitely a book needed in the field, where jokes are casually looked at and not enough science and reason is put behind it. For the experienced and scietific only, not a book to casually read without it making you think.
Still, it's definitely a book needed in the field, where jokes are casually looked at and not enough science and reason is put behind it. For the experienced and scietific only, not a book to casually read without it making you think.
One person found this helpful
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David VanderHamm
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent
Reviewed in the United States on 29 August 2012Verified Purchase
This book is about as good as it gets for anyone wanting to think in depth (not necessarily "seriously") about humour. It is commendable both for its overview of the relevant theories as well as for Critchley's original ideas. It is short enough to read in an evening, but sufficiently substantial as well. Critchley writes as well as any contemporary philosopher I've read, which helps immensely when tackling a subject like this.
5 people found this helpful
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