No Joke: Making Jewish Humor - Couverture rigide

Livre 3 sur 7: Library of Jewish Ideas

Wisse, Ruth R.

 
9780691149462: No Joke: Making Jewish Humor
Couverture rigide
ISBN 10 : 0691149461 ISBN 13 : 9780691149462
Editeur : Princeton University Press, 2013

Synopsis

Why the genius of Jewish humor runs risks as well as rewards

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 its practitioners and audience.

Wisse broadly traces modern Jewish humor around the world, teasing out its implications as she explores memorable and telling examples from German, Yiddish, English, Russian, and Hebrew. Among other topics, the book looks at how Jewish humor channeled Jewish learning and wordsmanship into new avenues of creativity, brought relief to liberal non-Jews in repressive societies, and enriched popular culture in the United States.

Even as it invites readers to consider the pleasures and profits of Jewish humor, the book asks difficult but fascinating questions: Can the excess and extreme self-ridicule of Jewish humor go too far and backfire in the process? And is "leave 'em laughing" the wisest motto for a people that others have intended to sweep off the stage of history?

Les informations fournies dans la section « Synopsis » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.

À propos de l?auteur

Ruth R. Wisse is the Martin Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature and professor of comparative literature at Harvard University. She is the author of The Modern Jewish Canon: A Journey through Language and Culture, which won a National Jewish Book Award. Her other books include Jews and Power (Schocken) and The Schlemiel as Modern Hero.

Les informations fournies dans la section « A propos du livre » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.

Éditeur
Princeton University Press
Date d'édition
2013
Langue
anglais
ISBN 10 
0691149461
ISBN 13 
9780691149462
Reliure
Relié
Nombre de pages
296
Coordonnées du fabricant
non disponible
Personne responsable
non disponible

Autres éditions populaires du même titre

9780691165813: No Joke: Making Jewish Humor

Edition présentée

ISBN 10 :  0691165815 ISBN 13 :  9780691165813
Editeur : Princeton University Press, 2015
Couverture souple