The European Journal of Humour Research

Vol 8, No 1 (2020)

Affect philosophy meets incongruity: about transformative potentials in comic laughter

Mark Weeks

Abstract

The emergence of philosophical affect theory, sourced substantially in Continental philosophy, has intensified scholarly attention around affective potentials in laughter. However, the relationship between laughter’s affect and the comic remains a complicated one for researchers, with some maintaining that the two should be studied separately (Emmerson 2019, Parvulescu 2010). While there is a credible academic rationale for drawing precise distinctions, the present article takes an integrative approach to laughter and the comic. It analyzes, then synthesizes, points of convergence between key texts in affect philosophy and certain elements of incongruity-based humour theory. Specifically, the article seeks to demonstrate that some integration can bring insight and clarity to discussion of transformative potentials sometimes attributed to forms of comic laughter, especially within cultural studies and social science following the philosophy of Deleuze. This approach may also usefully complicate the concept of incongruity itself.

 

References

Amir, L. (2010). ‘Humor and time’, in Grant, S. (ed.), Time, Transcendence, Performance: Refereed Conference Proceedings, Melbourne: Monash University, pp. 1-31.

Attardo S. & Pickering, L. (2011). ‘Timing in the Performance of Jokes’, Humor 24(2), pp. 233-50.

Bergson, H. (1911). Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic.

Brereton, C. & Rothwell, F. (trans.). New York: Macmillan.

Braidotti, R. (2011). Nomadic Theory: The Portable Rosi Braidotti. New York: Columbia University Press.

Brigstocke, J. (2014). The Life of the City: Space, Humour, and the Experience of Truth in Fin-de-Siecle Montmartre. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing.

Conway, J. (2010). Gilles Deleuze: Affirmation in Philosophy. Palgrave MacMillan.

Deleuze, G. (1973). ‘Pensé nomade’, in Nietzsche–Aujourd’hui? 1. Intensités. Paris: Union Générale d’Editions.

Deleuze, G. (1977). ‘Nomad thought’, Allison, D. (trans.), in The New Nietzsche: Contemporary Styles of Interpretation, Allison, D. (ed.), pp. 142-49. New York: Dell Publishing.

Deleuze, G. (1983). Cinema 1: L’Image-Mouvement. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit.

Deleuze, G. (1986a). Cinema 1: The Movement-Image, Tomlinson, H. & Habberjam, B. (trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Deleuze, G. (1986b). Nietzsche and Philosophy, Tomlinson, H. (trans.). London: Continuum.

Deleuze, G. (1995). Difference and Repetition, Patton, P. (trans.). New York: Columbia University Press.

Deleuze, G. (2004). ‘Nietzsche’s burst of laughter’, in Desert Islands and Other Texts 1953-1974. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e).

Derrida, J. (1978). Writing and Difference, Bass, A. (ed. & trans.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Derrida, J. (1998). ‘I’ll have to wander all alone’, Kammerman, D. (trans.). Tympanum, Retrieved July 22, 2018 from https://cengizerdem.wordpress.com/2009/12/01/ill-have-to-wander-all-alone-jacques-derrida/

Eastman, M. (1937). Enjoyment of Laughter. London: Hamish Hamilton.

Emmerson, P. (2017). ‘Thinking laughter beyond humour: Atmospheric refrains and ethical indeterminacies in spaces of care’. Environment and Planning A 49(9), pp. 2082-2098.

Emmerson, P. (2019). ‘From coping to carrying on: A pragmatic laughter between life and death’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 44, pp. 141-154.

Freud, S. (1960). Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, Strachey J. (trans.). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Gregg, M. & Seigworth G. (eds). (2010). The Affect Theory Reader. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Hall, K., Goldstein, D. & Ingram, B. (2016). ‘The hands of Donald Trump: Entertainment, gesture, spectacle’, HAU Journal of Ethnographic Theory 6(2), pp. 71-100.

Hehl, F. & Ruch, W. (1990). ‘Conservatism as a predictor of responses to humour: III. The prediction of appreciation of incongruity resolution based humour by content saturated attitude scales in five samples’, Personality & Individual Differences 11(5), pp. 439-445.

Holt, E. & Glenn, P. J. (2013). Studies of Laughter in Interaction. London: Bloomsbury Academy.

Hughes, S. M. (2016). ‘Beyond Intentionality: Exploring creativity and resistance within a UK Immigration Removal Centre’, Citizenship Studies 20, pp. 427-433.

Hynes, M. & Scott S. (2010). ‘Yea-saying laughter’, Parallax 16(3), pp. 44–54.

Kant, I. (1952). The Critique of Judgement, Meredith, J. C. (trans.). Oxford: Clarendon.

Koestler, Arthur. (1964). The Act of Creation. New York: Penguin.

Martin, R. (2006). The Psychology of Humor: An Integrative Approach. New York: Elsevier.

Massumi, B. (1987). Foreword to A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Massumi, B. (trans.), Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Massumi, B. (1995). The Autonomy of Affect. Cultural Critique 31(Fall), 83-109.

Massumi, B. (2015). The Politics of Affect. Cambridge. UK: Polity Press.

Morreall, J. (1983). Taking Laughter Seriously. New York: SUNY.

Morreall, J. (1989). ‘Enjoying Incongruity’, Humor 2(1), pp. 1-18.

Nancy, J. (2008). Discourse on the Syncope: Logodaedalus, Anton, S. (trans.). Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Nietzsche, F. (1976). Thus Spoke Zarathustra, in The Portable Nietzsche, Kaufmann W. (ed. & trans.). Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.

Nietzsche, F. (1972). Beyond Good and Evil, Hollingdale, R. J. (trans.). Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Parvulescu, A. (2010). Laughter: Notes on a Passion. Cambridge (MA): MIT Press.

Plessner, H. (1970). Laughing and Crying: A Study in the Limits of Human Behavior. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.

Postman, N. (1985). Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. London: Penguin.

Provine, R. (2000). Laughter: A Scientific Investigation. New York: Penguin.

Raskin, V. (1985). The Semantic Mechanisms of Humor. Boston: Reidel.

Ritchie, G. (1999). ‘Developing the incongruity-resolution theory’, Informatics Research Report EDI-INF-RR-0007. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh. Retrieved July 12, 2018 from https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/3397

Routledge, P. (2012). ‘Sensuous solidarities: Emotion, politics and performance in the clandestine insurgent rebel clown army’, Antipode 44, pp. 428-452.

Ruch, W. & Hehl, F. U(1986a). ‘Conservatism as a predictor of responses to humour’: I. A comparison of four scales. Personality & Individual Differences 7(1), pp. 1-14.

Ruch, W. & Hehl, F. (1986b). ‘Conservatism as a predictor of responses to humour: II. The location of sense of humour in a comprehensive attitude space’. Personality & Individual Differences 7(6). 861-874.

Segal, A. (2018). “Jokes, aporia and undecidability”. European Journal of Humour Research 6(1), pp. 1-11.

Spinoza, B. (1994). Ethics, Curley, E. (trans.). London: Penguin Books.

Sulejmanov, F., Spasovski, O. & Platt, T. (2018). ‘The development of the Humour Structure Appreciation Scale and its relation to Sensation Seeking Inventory and Need for Closure Scale’, European Journal of Humour Research 6(1), pp. 124-140.

Taibbi, M. (2017). Insane Clown President: Dispatches from the American Circus. London: Penguin.

Warhol, A. (1975). The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again. New York: Harcourt.

Weeks, M. (2002). ‘Laughter, Desire and Time’, Humor 15(4), pp. 383-400.

Weeks, M. (2013). ‘Abandoning our selves to laughter: Time and the question of self-loss in laughter’, Israeli Journal of Humor Research 3, pp. 58-75.