Overview

All humans laugh. However, there is little agreement about what is appropriate to laugh at. While laughter can unite people by showing how they share values and perspectives, it is also has the power to separate and divide. Humor that crosses the line can make people feel excluded and humiliated. This collection of new essays addresses possible ways that moral and ethical lines can be drawn around humor and laughter. What would a Kantian approach to humor look like? Do games create a safe space for profanity and offense? Contributors to this volume work to establish and explain guidelines for thinking about the moral questions that arise when humor and laughter intersect with medicine, gender, race, and politics. Drawing from the work of stand-up comedians, television shows, and ethicists, this volume asserts that we are never just joking.

Full Product Details

Author:   Steven A. Benko
Publisher:   McFarland & Co Inc
Imprint:   McFarland & Co Inc
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 1.10cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.350kg
ISBN:  

9781476676418

ISBN 10:   1476676410
Pages:   214
Publication Date:   02 October 2020
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii Introduction (Steven A. Benko) 1 Part One: Laughter, Ethicists and Ethics Toward an Objective Ethic of Humor (Jennifer Marra) 17 Closing the Comic Loophole: Reframing the Aesthetics and Ethics of Comedy (Shouta Brown) 28 What Is Kant's Theory of Humor? (Robert R. Clewis) 40 The Justice of the Funny (Liz Sills) 57 Otherwise Than Laughter: Levinas and an Ethics of Laughter (Steven A. Benko) 71 Part Two: Laughter, Gender and Race Minority Report: Joking About the Other (Rebecca Krefting) 87 That's Way Too Aggressive a Word: Aziz Ansari, Comedy of Incongruity and Affectively Charged Feminism (Steven A. Benko and Eleanor Jones) 99 The Boondocks and the Ethics of Black Comic Rage (Christophe D. Ringer ) 113 Relief and Revelation: The Ethics of Comedy in the #MeToo Era Through Dave Chappelle's The Bird Revelation (Olivia Moorer) 126 Part Three: Laughter and Late Night Blowing Off Steam: Freud, Smut and Samantha Bee's Political Comedy (Erica A. Holberg) 141 The Vices and Virtues of David Letterman (Cindy Muenchrath Spady) 154 The Complex Ethics of Jimmy Kimmel as Confidence Man and Scientific Communicator (Shelly A. Galliah) 167 Part Four: Laughter and Ridicule Ethical Features of Derogatory Humor in Medical Settings (Ralph H. Didlake and Caroline E. Compretta) 185 Laughter, Bodily Pain and Ethics in YouTube Fail Videos (Jonathan Peter Wright) 197 Laughing with Horrible People: Reaffirming Ethical Boundaries Through Laughter (Nicole Graham) 210 The Caring Practical Joke (David K. McGraw) 223 Laughter is not our medicine : Hannah Gadsby's Nanette and the Balm of Comedy (Grant Moss) 232 About the Contributors 245 Index 249

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Author Information

Steven A. Benko is a professor of religious and ethical studies at Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina.

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