What is Humor?

Process of stimuli, cognitive activity, and behavioral response

Relational, relative, relevant

Expressive and experiential

Performance

Theory

Humor performances are not theatrical practices

“Making culture” through cultural performance (Hamera and Madison 2006:xii)

Living Drama: Act, Scene, Agent, Agency, and Purpose

Agency Theory

“We make ourselves, but not under conditions of our own choosing” (Kockelman 2007:375)

Agency = flexibility, accountability, knowledge and power

The Agent as Performer

The

Psychological

Approach

Humor is “The highest of…defensive processes” (Freud 1960:290)

Anxiety and relief

Hostility and superiority/disparagement approaches

Social psychology

The “Updated”

Psychological

Approach

The Unconscious & caricature = Cultural performance and control

Anxiety release and pleasure gain =

Dynamic, responsible performance

Hostility and disparagement =

Inequality and “re-making”

The Joking Relationship

Approach

Radcliffe-Brown: the founding father

Standardized structure; kinship

OR:

Relations as “not highly determined” (Freedman 1977:155)

The “Updated”

Joking Relationship

Approach

Opposing structures (joking and avoidance) =

enactment of culture, not structure

agency elevated over structure

Intimacy and hostility; “laughing with” and “laughing at” =

expression, boundaries, and relational worlds

Takeaway

Points

Joking relationship and psychological approaches do not do justice to anthropological methods

Humor is “no laughing matter”:

Lack of context

Cannot “laugh off” theories of humor

Targeting cultural complexity

Thank You!

Apte (1985) Burke (1945) Kockelman (2007) Provine (2000) Hall (1968) Turner (1982) Raskin (2008) Hamera and

Madison (2006) Callinicos (2004) Seizer (2011) Martin (2007) Freud (1960) Radcliffe-Brown

(1940; 1949) Freedman (1977) Redmond (2008) Garde (2008) Musharbash (2008) Dwyer and

Minnegal (2008) Alexeyeff (2008) Beckett (2008) Morton (2008)

WorksReferenced