| Summary: | Includes bibliographical references and index. Laughter, contemporary theory suggests, is often aggressive in some manner and may be prompted by a sudden perception of incongruity combined with memories of past emotional experience. Given this importance of the past to our recognition of the comic, it follows that some traditions dispose us to lucid responses. The studies in this collection examine specific interactions of text (jokes, poetry, epitaphs, iconography, film drama) and social context (wakes, festivals, disasters) that shape and generate laughter. Uniquely, however, the essays here peruse a remarkable paradox--the convergence of death and humor.--Provided by publisher. Jokes that follow mass-mediated disasters in a global electronic age / Christie Davies -- Making a big apple crumble: the role of humor in constructing a global response to disaster / Bill Ellis -- Creating situations: practical jokes and the revival of the dead in Irish tradition / Ilana Harlow -- Tricks and fun: subversive pleasures at Newfoundland wakes / Peter Narváez -- "Pardon me for not standing": modern America graveyard humor / Richard E. Meyer -- Wishes come true: designing the Greenwich Village Halloween parade / Jack Kugelmass -- Making merry with death: iconic humor in Mexico's Day of the Dead / Kristin Congdon -- Calaveras: literary humor in Mexico's Day of the Dead / Stanley Brandes -- Exit laughing: death and laughter in Los Angeles and Port-au-Prince / Donald J. Cosentino -- Dancing skeletons: the subversion of death among deadheads / LuAnne K. Roth -- Traditional narrative, popular aesthetics, Weekend at Bernie's, and vernacular cinema / Mikel Koven.
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