Lawrence Epstein's “The Haunted Smile” tackles a subject both poignant and delightful: the story of Jewish comedians in America. For the past century and more, American comedy has drawn its strength and soul from the comic genius of Jewish performers and writers. An incomplete listing of names makes the point: The Marx Brothers, Jack Benny, Fanny Brice, George Burns, Milton Berle, Jackie Mason, Joan Rivers, Rodney Dangerfield, Mel Brooks, Alan...

"A witty book about wit that steers an elegant path between waggishness and wisdom."--Stephen Fry. In this whimsical book, James Geary explores every facet of wittiness, from its role in innovation to why puns demonstrate the essence of creativity. Geary reasons that wit is both visual and verbal, physical and intellectual: there's the serendipitous wit of scientists, the crafty wit of inventors, the optical wit of artists, and the metaphysical wit...

"In the tradition of Paul Johnson's Intellectuals, Creators, and Heroes, a new book of biographical portraits of the greatest humorists and wits in modern history"--

Through laughing, lying, and signifying, the underground tradition of African American humor continues to transform American culture. This comprehensive history discusses blackface minstrelsy, Stepin Fetchit, and the Amos 'n' Andy show; folktales, race records, and all-black shows and film; Bert Williams, Moms Mabley, and Redd Foxx; Richard Pryor, Whoopi Goldberg, and Eddie Murphy. Here, in a second edition featuring a new afterword, is the definitive...

Humor is the most celebrated of all Jewish responses to modernity. In this book, Ruth Wisse evokes and applauds the genius of spontaneous Jewish joking--as well as the brilliance of comic masterworks by writers like Heinrich Heine, Sholem Aleichem, Isaac Babel, S. Y. Agnon, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and Philip Roth. At the same time, Wisse draws attention to the precarious conditions that call Jewish humor into being--and the price it may exact from...

"This book traces the transmission and reception of one of the most influential novels in Western literature. The Golden Ass, the only ancient Roman novel to survive in its entirety, tells of a young man changed into an ass by magic and his bawdy adventures and narrow escapes before the goddess Isis changes him back again. Its centerpiece is the famous story of Cupid and Psyche. Julia Gaisser follows Apuleius' racy tale from antiquity through the...

Jackie "Moms" Mabley was an African-American stand-up comic and showbiz pioneer who emerged from the Chitlin' Circuit of African-American Vaudeville to become a mainstream star on the stage and TV. Mabley pushed the boundaries of comedy by tackling topics such as gender, sex, and racism, making her one of the first taboo-pushing comedians on the comedy circuit. Once billed as "The Funniest Woman in the World", she performed up until her death in 1975....

"In this comprehensive approach to Jewish humor focused on the relationship between humor and American Jewish practice, Jennifer Caplan calls us to adopt a more expansive view of what it means to "do Jewish," revealing that American Jews have, and continue to, turn to humor as a cultural touchstone. Caplan frames the book around four generations of Jewish Americans from the Silent Generation to Millennials, highlighting a shift from the utilization...

Written by an acknowledged master of comedy, this study reflects on the nature of humour and the functions it serves. Why do we laugh? What are we to make of the sheer variety of laughter, from braying and cackling to sniggering and chortling? Is humour subversive, or can it defuse dissent? Can we define wit? Packed with illuminating ideas and a good many excellent jokes, the book critically examines various well-known theories of humour, including...