In this book Helen Paynter offers a radical re-evalution of the central section of Kings. Reading with attention to the literary devices of carnivalization and mirroring, she demonstrates that it contains a florid satire on kings, prophets and nations. Building on the work of humorists, literary critics and biblical scholars, the author constructs diagnostic criteria for carnivalization (seriocomedy), and identifies an abundance of these features within the Elijah/Elisha and Aram narratives, showing how literary mirroring further enhances their satirical effect. This book will be of particular interest to students and scholars concerned with the Hebrew Bible as literature but will be valued by those who favour more historical approaches for its insights into the Hebrew text.

"Since human laughter served, in a sense, as Dostoevsky's model, the author pays some heed to the highly controversial subject of real-life laughter, along with the leading theories that seek to elucidate its causes and implications.".

Books about thinkers require a kind of unity that their thought may not possess. This cautionary statement is especially applicable to Mikhail Bakhtin, whose intellectual development displays a diversity of insights that cannot be easily integrated or accurately described in terms of a single overriding concern. Indeed, in a career spanning some sixty years, he experienced both dramatic and gradual changes in his thinking, returned to abandoned insights that he then developed in unexpected ways, and worked through new ideas only loosely related to his earlier concerns Small wonder, then, that Bakhtin should have speculated on the relations among received notions of biography, unity, innovation, and the creative process. Unity--with respect not only to individuals but also to art, culture, and the world generally--is usually understood as conformity to an underlying structure or an overarching scheme. Bakhtin believed that this idea of unity contradicts the possibility of true creativity. For if everything conforms to a preexisting pattern, then genuine development is reduced to mere discovery, to a mere uncovering of something that, in a strong sense, is already there. And yet Bakhtin accepted that some concept of unity was essential. Without it, the world ceases to make sense and creativity again disappears, this time replaced by the purely aleatory. There would again be no possibility of anything meaningfully new. The grim truth of these two extremes was expressed well by Borges: an inescapable labyrinth could consist of an infinite number of turns or of no turns at all. Bakhtin attempted to rethink the concept of unity in order to allow for the possibility of genuine creativity. The goal, in his words, was a "nonmonologic unity," in which real change (or "surprisingness") is an essential component of the creative process. As it happens, such change was characteristic of Bakhtin's own thought, which seems to have developed by continually diverging from his initial intentions. Although it would not necessarily follow that the development of Bakhtin's thought corresponded to his ideas about unity and creativity, we believe that in this case his ideas on nonmonologic unity are useful in understanding his own thought--as well as that of other thinkers whose careers are comparably varied and productive.

Much writing about comedy in the last twenty years has only trivialized comedy as cheap or as temporary distraction from things that "really matter." It has either presented exhaustive taxonomies of kinds of humor--like wit, puns, jokes, humor, satire, irony--or engaged in pointless political endgames, moral dialogues, or philosophical perceptions. Comedy is rarely presented as a mode of thought in its own right, as a way of understanding, not something to be understood. Bruns' guiding assumption is that comedy is not simply a literary or theatrical genre, to be diff erentiated from tragedy or from romance, but a certain way of disclosing, perhaps undoing, the way the world is organized. When we view the world in terms of what is incompatible, we are reading comically. In this sense, comedy exists outside the alternatives of tragic and comic. Loopholes argues that trivialization of comedy comes from fear that it will address our anxieties with honesty-- and it is this truth that scares us. John Bruns discusses comedy as a mode of thought with a cognitive function. It is a domain of human understanding, a domain far more troubling and accessible than we care to acknowledge. To "read comically" we must accept our fears. If we do so, we will realize what Bruns refers to as the most neglected premise of comedy, that the world itself is a loophole--both incomplete and limitless.

The story of a recovery from a crippling disease and the physician patient partnership that beat the odds by using the patient's own capabilities.

BBC and Google have used it in their offices Oprah Winfrey promoted it on her show Aamir Khan loved it on Satyamev Jayate Mira Nair filmed a documentary, The Laughing Club of India, on it Laughter yoga is a revolutionary idea: simple and profound. A practice involving prolonged voluntary laughter, it is based on scientific studies that have concluded that such laughter offers the same physiological and psychological benefits as spontaneous laughter. Today, laughter yoga has become popular worldwide as a complete workout. It is practised in more than 100 countries, with as many as 2.5 lakh people laughing out loud in India alone. This comprehensive book by the founder of the laughter yoga club movement, Dr Madan Kataria, tells you what laughter yoga is, how it works, what its benefits are and how you can apply it to everyday life.

We participate in moral debate, instead of taking established morality for granted, because of our discontent with the moral discourse already existing. We feel that something is distorted or concealed, that something remains to be said. One of the strategies to expose the deficiencies of established discourse is critical argument, but under certain specific historical circumstances, the apparent self-evidence of established moral discourse has gained such a dominance, has acquired such an ability to conceal its basic vulnerability, that its validity simply seems beyond contestation. Notwithstanding our discontent, we remain unable to challenge the established truth effectively. Then, all of a sudden, its vulnerability is revealed - and this is the experience of laughter. Moral criticism is preceded by laughter. In fact, all crucial transformations that emerged in the history of morality were accompanied by and made possible by laughter and moral criticism is basically and originally a comic genre. After drawing an outline of the present moral regime in chapter one, the moral significance of laughter is recovered with the help of four 'philosophers of laughter' in chapter two, namely Bakhtin, Nietzsche, Bataille and Foucault. Laughter allows reality to appear in a certain light, it contains a basic truth, it is a philosophical principle in its own right that cannot be reduced to or identified with the truth of science. In the subsequent chapters it is shown how three crucial moral transformations, occuring in the fourth century B.C., the sixteenth century A.D. and the nineteenth century A.D. evolved out of an experience of laughter, articulated by three outstanding protagonists of laughter presented in this book: Socrates, Luther and Ibsen. Finally, the significance of the experience of laughter in view of the present is discussed.

Do men and women laugh at the same things? Is laughter contagious? Has anyone ever really died laughing? Is laughing good for your health? Drawing upon ten years of research into this most common-yet complex and often puzzling-human phenomenon, Dr. Robert Provine, the world's leading scientific expert on laughter, investigates such aspects of his subject as its evolution, its role in social relationships, its contagiousness, its neural mechanisms, and its health benefits. This is an erudite, wide-ranging, witty, and long-overdue exploration of a frequently surprising subject.

"An absolutely dazzling entertainment. . . . Arousing on every level—political, erotic, intellectual, and above all, humorous." —Newsweek "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting calls itself a novel, although it is part fairy tale, part literary criticism, part political tract, part musicology, and part autobiography. It can call itself whatever it wants to, because the whole is genius." —New York Times Rich in its stories, characters, and imaginative range, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting is the novel that brought Milan Kundera his first big international success in the late 1970s. Like all his work, it is valuable for far more than its historical implications. In seven wonderfully integrated parts, different aspects of human existence are magnified and reduced, reordered and emphasized, newly examined, analyzed, and experienced.

Dr. Brian King is a psychologist and stand-up comedian whose humor therapy seminars are attended by more than ten thousand people each year. In The Laughing Cure, King combines wit with medical research to reveal the benefits of laughter and humor on physical and emotional health. King’s language is humorous and uplifting, and his advice is backed in science. The Laughing Cure features clinical studies and interviews with some of the nation’s top doctors that prove that laughter lowers blood pressure, reduces stress hormones, increases muscle flexion, boosts immune systems, and triggers endorphins. It’s been shown to relieve depression, to produce a general sense of wellbeing, even to make us more productive, loving, and kind. The Laughing Cure presents step-by-step guidance and proven techniques to embrace laughter as both medicine for current conditions and preventative medicine. This highly unique and enjoyable read explains why much-talked about, but little understood methods of therapy like those embraced by acclaimed humor doctor Patch Adams—played by Robyn Williams in a 1998 film—and laughter yoga actually work. Growing up, King wanted to be a stand-up comic; his PhD. was his backup plan. Little did he know, the impact his unique situation would put him in, the way it would allow him to help others. Very few doctors have the ability to heal the way that King does; his method is cheap, easy, chemical-free—even fun. With The Laughing Cure, readers will learn how—and why—laughter saves lives.