Redeeming Laughter

by Berger, Peter L.

• ISBN13: 9783110155624
• ISBN10: 3110155621
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1997-06-01
• Publisher: De Gruyter

Summary

The author of numerous previous books of broad appeal and scholarly acclaim on subjects ranging from sociological theory to religious ethics in government and economic systems, and the coauthor of a vastly influential treatise on The Social Construction of Reality, Berger unfolds in Redeeming Laughter a new perspective on a classic domain. Berger's comic terrain is at once noble and amusing, the terrain of Erasmus and Swift. Like his predecessors', Berger's writing in these pages is bolstered with exemplary learning and wry observation.

Table of Contents

Prefatory Remarks, Self-Serving Explanations and Unsolicited Compliments	ix	(4)
Prologue	xiii
PART I. ANATOMY OF THE COMIC	3	(96)
1 The Comic Intrusion	3	(12)
2 Philosophers of the Comic, and the Comedy of Philosophy	15	(24)
3 Laughing Monks: A Very Brief Sinitic Interlude	39	(6)
4 Homo Ridens: Physiology and Psychology	45	(20)
5 Homo Ridiculus: Social Constructions of the Comic	65	(22)
6 Interlude: Brief Reflections on Jewish Humor	87	(12)
PART II. COMIC FORMS OF EXPRESSION	99	(88)
7 The Comic as Diversion: Benign Humor	99	(18)
8 The Comic as Consolation: Tragicomedy	117	(18)
9 The Comic as Game of Intellect: Wit	135	(22)
10 The Comic as Weapon: Satire	157	(18)
11 Interlude: The Eternal Return of Folly	175	(12)
PART III. TOWARD A THEOLOGY OF THE COMIC	187	(30)
12 The Folly of Redemption	187	(10)
13 Interlude: On Grim Theologians	197	(8)
14 The Comic as a Signal of Transcendence	205	(12)
Epilogue	217