Literary Humanism Research Articles

The Literacy of Pain

Following H. L. Goodall Jr.'s call to employ narrative ethnography to help re-establish “the centrality of personal experience and identity in the social construction of knowledge,”1 this essay examines one scholar's efforts to identify with her student, Anna, during her battle with terminal Ewing's Sarcoma. Using performative writing and the lenses of literary devices and relief humor, we seek mechanisms for grappling with the complexities of life and death: labeling devices and tropes, using what we know to figure out what we do not know, and thinking critically and reflexively.

أدب الفكاهة وتعليمية اللغات الأجنبية والترجمة: دراسة في تعليمية اللغة الإنجليزية والترجمة

Humor Literature and Teaching Foreign Languages and Translation: A Study in Teaching English Language and Translation
 In the present article, we would like to introduce the role of humor literature in teaching the English language and translation from two sides, one is based on the didactics of English language features and its bases, and the second one aims at clarifying the role of punctuation in translation didactics. This is because we believe that this method is not related with the art of education as much as it is related with the psychological aspect of the learner to encourage him to acquire the knowledge easily with pleasure and a funny way of communication. In this context, we are trying to shed light on the following aspects: To define the humor literature and its forms, and to clarify the importance of this type of literature and arts that we find an important factor to motivate the learner through the exploitation of jokes which is a distinct and a familiar didactic method in which the learner can easily and freely absorb it. In addition, this helps him to actively participate and express his opinions and mental abilities and to develop his cultural knowledge. Besides, it reduces the pressure and the tension in the didactics process on an ongoing basis so that the learner remains comfortable.

Exploitation of Humour in Kayode Ariyo's "The Misplaced Trust" and "A Bright New Day"

The effect of humour in literature has of recent times attained a cynosure, carving out such a decent class for comedy. The knowledge of this nascent trend of development has not eluded budding creative writers who seem to be slugging it out with tragedy in literary works. Ariyo's meticulous and intelligent exploitation of this element has not left him out of the league of those who have used it to the latter. Abinitio, a general overview of humour: surrounding concepts and theories, drawing from available literatures, is given. Thereafter, the paper attempts to x-ray closely, how the concept of humour has been exploited in drama, specifically basing it on Ariyo's duo. It then goes on to analyze the effects of the model humour in Ariyo's ‘The Misplaced Trust’ and ‘A Bright New Day’; after which a conclusion is drawn on the concept of humour exploitation in the works. The paper further reveals how humour relieves tension, induces laughter and rest of mind which bring out the emotional, psychological and clinical state of people’s mind.

Humor in Literature About Children With Disability: What Are We Seeing in Literature?

This article explores instances of humor in literature as it relates to children with disabilities and offers ways to help children and adolescents build an authentic understanding of disability and disability humor. The prevalent message in the books reviewed is that children with disability not only appreciate humor but also can produce various types of humor.

Augusta Browne: From Musical Prodigy to Musical Pilgrim in Nineteenth-Century America

AbstractAugusta Browne Garrett composed at least two hundred piano pieces, songs, duets, hymns, and sacred settings between her birth in Dublin, Ireland, around 1820, and her death in Washington, D.C., in 1882. Judith Tick celebrated Browne as the “most prolific woman composer in America before 1870” in her landmark studyAmerican Women Composers before 1870. Browne, however, cast an enduring shadow as an author as well, publishing two books, a dozen poems, several Protestant morality tracts, and more than sixty music essays, nonfiction pieces, and short stories. By means of her prose publications, Augusta Browne “put herself into the text—as into the world, into history—by her own movement,” as feminist writer Hélène Cixous urged of women a century later. Browne maintained a presence in the periodical press for four decades in a literary career that spanned music journalism, memoir, humor, fiction, poetry, and Christian devotional literature, but one essay, “The Music of America” (1845), generated attention through the twentieth century. With much of her work now easily available in digitized sources, Browne's life can be recovered, her music experienced, and her prose reassessed, which taken together yield a rich picture of the struggles, successes, and opinions of a singular participant and witness in American music of her era.

Politics of literary humour and contested narrative identity (of a region with no identity)

The paper concerns the reading of humour, literary imaginativeness, social structures, local identities, as well as their emancipation, and their interconnected nature. Humour is approached here as a tool through which the writer as well as the reader can self-consciously rise above the social and cultural discourses within which the text itself is written. These themes are discussed by investigating how literary humour is used in the process of narrativizing the marginalized histories and identities of the Tornedalen (Torne Valley) region of Sweden. The specific focus is on the humour of novelist Mikael Niemi, a native of the region, and his novel Popularmusik Från Vittula. The paper examines how Niemi’s literary humour is embedded in the questions of spatiality and otherness, and how they are both constructed and contested through irony directed at the common regional stereotypes of Tornedalen, a ‘region with no identity’. The key argument here concerns how perceiving the world through humour, and humour through social criticism, are alternative manners of acknowledging, understanding and interpreting the processes on-going in space and society.

Humorous literature as a means of foreign sociocultural competence development

Outspokenness, goodwill, sense of humour help downplay ten-sions, avoid misunderstandings, quarrels, conflicts in intercultural communication. One way to develop a sense of humor is to work with authentic humorous literature which helps better understand the culture, mentality, world perception of other people. The paper investigates the appropriateness of using humorous literature at foreign language classes; offers exercises that can be used while working with this literature. Methodology: theoretical analysis of psychological, pedagogical and methodical literature, personal work experience analysis. Practical implications: foreign language teaching.

Do humour and threat work well together?

Using humour to communicate threatening information in advertising has often been observed in practice, but seldom been tested in research. Integrating the humour and threat persuasion literature, the current research tested the effects of humorous threat persuasion and need for cognition (NFC) as a measure of one’s processing motivation and capacity. A significant three-way interaction between humour, threat level and NFC emerged where low-NFC participants responded more positively to the no-humour condition than the humour condition with low threat, and more positively to the humour condition than the no-humour condition in the high-threat advertisement. The opposite was observed for high-NFC participants. Implications for both theory and practice are provided.

The Inner Workings of Lu Xun’s Mind: Behind the Author’s Pen-Names

Lu Xun is arguably the most prolific user of pseudonyms of all writers in the world. The question, then, is why. While the diversity and multiplicity of Lu Xun’s pseudonyms defy clear classification, a close examination reveals much more than just the erstwhile political justifications for anonymity. This article argues that Lu Xun’s pseudonyms, with their rich literary allusions, satire, and humour, shed light on his complex character, and contributed to his sophisticated writing style. Through the author’s choice of pseudonyms, we see the inner workings of his mind, hear a voice of a national conscience, and feel his intense—albeit at times ambivalent—emotions. The pen-names Lu Xun ingeniously employed constructed his image as a solitary thinker and fighter embarked on a long and difficult journey in search of light in the darkness. Indeed, not only have the pseudonyms enriched the layered significance of his writing, they also have much to tell about Lu Xun both as an author and a person: his keen awareness of social and political issues, his deep insight into the weakness of the national character, and his passionate concern for the nation, as well as his eclectic approach to both classical discourse and modern narrative. And as such, these pseudonyms should form an integral part of the many queries posed and pondered by Lu Xun studies.

Unveiling the humor mind of the “starving Armenians”: Literary and internet humor

AbstractThe international fame of the “starving Armenians” has overshadowed this biblical nation's ardent love for humor and wit. The geography and distinctive language of the Armenians have also veiled the Armenian humor mind from international humor scholarship. In the present article, contemporary Armenian humor forms and expressions of Armenian humor in literary work (fable, satire and dark humor) and the internet are described. This illustration of Armenian humor forms and means of communication is informed by contemporary Western humor theory and research. The analysis of Armenian humor dispels the stereotype of the Armenian as poor and starving and reveals a rich culture full of varied forms of humor from ancient times to the internet age. A contemporary Armenian humor mind that is open to humor appreciation and expression is reflected in the designation and veneration of Gümri as the humor capital of Armenians, and the recognition of April 1 as a national day of humor and wit.

Mehrdeutigkeit und Humor in der Übersetzung

This paper is dedicated to the concept of ambiguity and humor as an intercultural phenomenon. In the first section, we introduce different concepts of the term humor in literature from the perspective of literary and cultural studies, psychology and cognitive linguistics. We attempt to show that the concept of humor and ambiguity of an intercultural and interlingual perspective may belong to the most difficult areas of translation theory. At the same time, humor and polysemy are the key concepts of a semantically and pragmatically based theory of translation. In the second section, we will briefly deal with the phenomena of humor and ambiguity from the psycholinguistic and cognitive point of view and thereby we try to analyze the difference between visuality and textuality of Shakespeare’s tragedy “Romeo and Juliet” in film and on stage. The third section of this paper is devoted to the phenomenon of interculturality and the interlingual translation of pragmatic and cognitive-semantic categories on the example of polysemy, vagueness, irony, pun, word play and joke (and its various strategies and conversational implicatures in the literary text). It is assumed that initially the validity of the Relevance criterion (Sperber & Wilson 2005) and the validity of the principle of cooperation are in play, even in a text that is commonly considered as ‘meaningless’. We want to prove the example of James Joyce’s ‘Finnegans Wake‘, demonstrating that even such a seemingly illegible or difficult text that has often been considered non transferable, in a certain pattern and its narrative potential of the storyline, in the dynamics and in the progression descends from and is determined by the VALIDITY of the criterion of relevance. In another part of this third section, we turn to the Elizabethan drama of Shakespeare and the novel Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais, Ulysses by James Joyce as well as the unforgettable Novel by Jaroslav Hašek Brave Soldier Švejk, showing how wit and irony work and can be translated.

The Jungle Book: Another Facet of Childhood

Kipling indicates that The Jungle Books is a book for children in order to easily move it over grown-ups reason prohibitions. The delightful story tackles subjects at the level of children understanding, including a dose of exoticism demystified on the whole by a popular and literary humor of an old English origin. The Jungle Books reveals a world full range, without monotony and uniformity. Jungle life gets epic contours. The adventure takes place at the forest level, ruled by laws given by its creatures. In this context Mowgli, the young man raised by beasts and loved by them, was necessary to Kipling's idea of restoring order in nature.  Index Terms—animals, childhood, humor, nature I. INTRODUCTION For the child who grew-up in his British parents' bungalow, comfortable and civilized, with local ministers, at the margins of the jungle, India looks beautiful and mysterious. Nature with lush flora and fauna, with dangers watching everywhere, opened the child's heart to the fantasy world of stories. The Middle East made Rudyard Kipling a fabulous poet and a storyteller. At the people around, at the locals, he met the surface obedience necessary for the English master, which made him believe strongly in the mission of civilization to accept the English colonialism. The few years of college spent in England, between 1877 and 1882, at the United Services College in Devon, where he started his literary activity editing a literary magazine, only reinforced his idea, of the necessary human discipline could be brought only by the perfect organization, and the iron hand of England in the colonies. It is true that Kipling's love for India was genuine and deep, as evidenced by the dozens of books dedicated to people and places in this country of miracles and especially a number of critical implications for the English - we have seen in his books, even from the early career. But strong England, one that brings order and discipline in the chaos of India is forgiving in Kipling's eyes and this is crucial, not the behavior of individual mistakes in the English part. Naturally, when rebellions are large, armed interventions must restore everything. Thus, in the story The Undertakers in the Second Jungle Book the characters' memories refer to the great memories of the 1857 to the Indian revolt against the British, drowned in blood

Finding the Fun in Daily Occupation: An Investigation of Humor

Humor as a human phenomenon has long been explored for its perceived therapeutic benefits. To date, occupational therapy's contribution to this exploration has been limited, despite attention to rapport-building. This article provides an overview of the humor literature, particularly highlighting the neuroscience of humor, laughter, and fun, to craft an argument that humor is biologically, socially, and contextually grounded and influential in affecting the experience of occupational engagement. Translation of humor and fun into daily activity through clinical examples from an eating disorder program are introduced, along with the possibility of using fun to support social, emotional, and behavioral change.

Вуковски и вавилонски хумор у Андрићевим романима „На Дрини ћуприја“ и „Травничка хроника“

Although proverbially considered a writer of exceptionally tragic anthropological vision, Andric is a prime humourist. Seemingly contradictory at first glance, this claim makes perfect sense when the notion of humour is dislodged from the realm of common language practice and examined more closely in the light of aestheticism and literary theory, by means of which a clear division emerges, which separates humour from other laughter-generating literary devices, such as irony, comedy and the grotesque. The basic feature of genuine literary humour is reflected in its extreme closeness with the tragic elements in any given text, and this is precisely what makes interpretations of Andric in this context purposeful. The humour in his text is sometimes founded on oral traditions and a superb knowledge of local folklore, as is the case in his novel The Bridge on the Drina , and sometimes thrives on the clash of cultures and civilisations, different customs and mentality, as seen in The Days of Consuls . Regardless of whether we talk of Vuk’s humour or the Babel’s humour , it is the one element in Andric’s novels that most successfully marks the tragic elements in terms of style, sometimes it even goes beyond and becomes a form of surpassing the absurdity of human existence in an artistic fashion.

Humor and the Omniscient God

In this paper, we show that God is portrayed in the Hebrew Bible and in the Rabbinic literature – the very Hebrew texts that influenced Judaism and Christianity – as One who can be argued with. He even changes his mind. There is something funny about the thought of arguing or disagreeing with an omniscient God, but a number of Biblical characters do just that. God is omniscient, but He enjoys a good argument. Perhaps this is why Judaism has developed an almost unique approach to the relationship between man and God; to some degree Christianity has taken on this approach as well. This warm attitude vis-a-vis God has had a profound effect on Jewish (and Christian) humor and Jewish literature, even to this day. Does God have a sense of humor? If God is omniscient, why does he ever lose an argument? Why does He change His mind? Once we realize that God can accept teasing, arguing, disputes, criticism and – even – lawsuits, then, all the more so, we mortals should learn to live with other people who don’t always do or believe what we would like.

The Effects of Humorous Literature on Emotion: A Pilot Project Comparing Children with Asperger's Syndrome Before and After Neurofeedback Training and Controls

This study examined neurofeedback training, reading humorous stories, and emotion in children diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome (AS). In a pre-posttest design (before and after the story), positive and negative affect were compared between controls and two experimental groups of children with AS—those beginning training ( 40 sessions). Children with AS who had more than 40 sessions of neurofeedback responded the same way to the reading materials as the normally functioning controls with increases in positive affect and decreases in negative affect. Children with AS with less than 4 sessions of neurofeedback did not display this change.

Travelling Humour Reimagined: The Comedic Unhinging of the European Gaze in Caribbean Postcards

If you go to Antigua as a tourist . . . you might say, What a beautiful island Antigua is - more beautiful than any of the other islands you have seen, ... their way, but they were much green, . . . which indicated to you, the tourist, that they got quite a bit of rainfall, and rain is the very thing that you, just now, do not want, for you are thinking of the hard and cold and dark and long days you spent working North America (or, worse, Europe), earning some money so that you could stay this place (Antigua) where the sun always shines and where the climate is deliciously hot and dry for the four to ten days you are going to be staying there.- Jamaica Kincaid, A Small PlaceIN HER ESSAY A SMALL PLACE,1 Jamaica Kincaid's pointed and disturbing humour eloquently highlights the self-serving perspective of many tourists who visit the Caribbean, and this case, Antigua. Despite the unmistakable bite of her tone, Kincaid does not always invite readers to laugh aloud at such assertions; instead, revealing the instability and unreliability of European or North American ontological representations of the 'other', she demands that her audience question such constructions. For example, her subtle satire highlights tourists' limited view of the Caribbean and its inhabitants. Specifically, visitors' reductive and patronising assertions that the islands are beautiful in their way and self-serving criticisms of the too green space are unmasked through the author's satire. In these ways, her text is a literary response to the long and complex history of European and North American tourism the archipelago.2 The author's explorations her book and the script of the documentary that followed - Life and Debt (2001)3 - provide an apt model for humour's ability not only to seemingly replicate limiting stereotypes, but also to expose and explode such representations. Many critical studies on Kincaid have brilliantly analysed the sociocultural and ideological mechanics of her trademark humour, but few studies have noted the semantic and semiotic lineage of this type of humour routinely found Caribbean literatures. The long tradition of Caribbean postcards, which predates literary texts like Kincaid's, offers a rich visual genealogy of humour as deployed many of the archipelago's literary works. Postcard studies general are a relatively recent and underdeveloped field of study. Yet there is a significant intertextual relation between Caribbean literary humour and Caribbean postcards. In this essay I examine the hitherto untapped visual archive of counterdiscursive humour constituted by these documents.In the Caribbean, the visual genre has historically had a complex relationship with imperialistic touristic projects. Despite their association with colonialist regimes of representation - that remains visible today - the Caribbean postcards I examine may be said to disempower, discursively, the represented. In the particular case of the Caribbean, the use of humour postcards appears to follow the binary logic of colonial discourse. However, counterdiscursive humour like Kincaid's has long been present these images. In exploring the developments uses of humour Caribbean postcards, I examine the ways which both Europeans/North Americans and Caribbean locals deploy this humour to interrogate the limiting representations of Caribbean identity that such documents deployed. I argue that this long-present humour is more pronounced, and ultimately becomes the locus of subversive discourses that emanate from both the centre and the margins. Unlike notable theorisations of marginalised individuals' uses of humour which emphasise subversive properties as inversion - notably Mikhail Bakhtin's RabeUis and His World4 - this discussion examines the autonomous space created by Caribbean individuals humour, which moves away from such rigid polarisations. In order to examine assertions of autonomy that individuals made as images circulated with the advent of modern tourism the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this study focuses on both machine-made images and those that appear handmade by Caribbean artists commissioned to recreate island life as they experienced it. …

Recreation and Style: Translating Humorous Literature in Italian and English. By Brigid Maher. Pp. 193. Amsterdam and Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins, 2011. Hb. $128/€85.

<i>Recreation and Style: Translating Humorous Literature in Italian and English</i>. By Brigid Maher. Pp. 193. Amsterdam and Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins, 2011. Hb. $128/€85.

A meta‐analysis of positive humor in the workplace

PurposeThe benefits of humor for general well‐being have long been touted. Past empirical research has suggested that some of these benefits also exist in the work domain. However, there is little shared understanding as to the role of humor in the workplace. The purpose of this paper is to address two main gaps in the humor literature. First, the authors summarize several challenges researchers face in defining and operationalizing humor, and offer an integrative conceptualization which may be used to consolidate and interpret seemingly disparate research streams. Second, meta‐analysis is used to explore the possibility that positive humor is associated with: employee health (e.g. burnout, health) and work‐related outcomes (e.g. performance, job satisfaction, withdrawal); with perceived supervisor/leader effectiveness (e.g. perceived leader performance, follower approval); and may mitigate the deleterious effects of workplace stress on employee burnout.Design/methodology/approachThe authors examine the results of prior research using meta‐analysis (k=49,n=8,532) in order to explore humor's potential role in organizational and employee effectiveness.FindingsResults suggest employee humor is associated with enhanced work performance, satisfaction, workgroup cohesion, health, and coping effectiveness, as well as decreased burnout, stress, and work withdrawal. Supervisor use of humor is associated with enhanced subordinate work performance, satisfaction, perception of supervisor performance, satisfaction with supervisor, and workgroup cohesion, as well as reduced work withdrawal.Research limitations/implicationsProfitable avenues for future research include: clarifying the humor construct and determining how current humor scales tap this construct; exploring the role of negative forms of humor, as they likely have different workplace effects; the role of humor by coworkers; a number of potential moderators of the humor relationships, including type of humor, job level and industry type; and personality correlates of humor use and appreciation.Practical implicationsThe authors recommend caution be exercised when attempting to cultivate humor in the workplace, as this may raise legal concerns (e.g. derogatory or sexist humor), but efforts aimed at encouraging self‐directed/coping humor may have the potential to innocuously buffer negative effects of workplace stress.Originality/valueAlthough psychologists have long recognized the value of humor for general well‐being, organizational scholars have devoted comparatively little research to exploring benefits of workplace humor. Results underscore benefits of humor for work outcomes, encourage future research, and offer managerial insights on the value of creating a workplace context supportive of positive forms of humor.

Maher, Brigid (2011): Recreation and Style, Translating Humorous Literature in Italian and English. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 193 p.

Maher, Brigid (2011): Recreation and Style, Translating Humorous Literature in Italian and English. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 193 p.. An article from journal Meta (Journalisme et traduction), on Érudit.