The Humor Prism in Twentieth-Century America
Why do some jokes evaporate after the telling while others are transmitted to subsequent generations? Just what property of humor allows it to touch diverse members of a culture at a given time? As a penetrating and refracting angle of history, humor illuminates the expectations and contradictions of society, its anxieties and confusions, and permits perspective into any historic moment. The Humor Prism in Twentieth-Century America explores to what extent and in what ways American humor in...
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Preface11History and Humor17What Makes People Laugh?: Cracking the Cultural Code28The Great American Joke33Our Native Humor46Entropy and Transformation: Two Types of American Humor55American Political Humor: Touchables and Taboos71The Standup Comedian as Anthropologist: Intentional Culture Critic86The Urban Landscape117Saloons and Burlesques124The People of the Joke: On the Conceptualization of a Jewish Humor134African-American Humor: Resistance and Retaliation145Why Are These Women Laughing? The Power and Politics of Women's Humor159A Rose by Any Other Name ... The Occasional Doo-Dah Parade172The Giant and the Child: "Cruel" Humor in American Culture187The Helen Keller Joke Cycle195Racial Riddles and the Polack Joke208The J.A.P. and the J.A.M. in American Jokelore225Many Hands Make Light Work or Caught in the Act of Screwing in Light Bulbs250Those Sick Challenger Jokes258Bibliography267
