The Encyclopedia of Humor: A Social History explores the concept of humor in history and modern society in the United States and internationally. This work’s scope encompasses the humor of children, adults, and even nonhuman primates throughout the ages, from crude jokes and simple slapstick to sophisticated word play and ironic parody and satire. As an academic social history, it includes the perspectives of a wide range of disciplines, including sociology, child development, social psychology, life style history, communication, and entertainment media. Readers will develop an understanding of the importance of humor as it has developed globally throughout history and appreciate its effects on child and adult development, especially in the areas of health, creativity, social development, and imagination. This two-volume set is available in both print and electronic formats. Features & Benefits: The General Editor also serves as Editor-in-Chief of HUMOR: International Journal of Humor Research for The International Society for Humor Studies. The book’s 335 articles are organized in A-to-Z fashion in two volumes (approximately 1,000 pages). This work is enhanced by an introduction by the General Editor, a Foreword, a list of the articles and contributors, and a Reader’s Guide that groups related entries thematically. A Chronology of Humor, a Resource Guide, and a detailed Index are included. Each entry concludes with References/Further Readings and cross references to related entries. The Index, Reader’s Guide themes, and cross references between and among related entries combine to provide robust search-and-browse features in the electronic version. This two-volume, A-to-Z set provides a general, non-technical resource for students and researchers in such diverse fields as communication and media studies, sociology and anthropology, social and cognitive psychology, history, literature and linguistics, and popular culture and folklore.

This first annotated guide devoted entirely to American humor magazines and periodicals provides a comprehensive survey of a genre that has both enriched and reflected American mores, popular culture, and literature for over two hundred years. It offers analytical essays, bibliographies, and historical information on nearly three hundred of the most important individual publications, as well as extensive listings of rare periodicals about which very little is presently known.

Providing both theory and praxis, this insightful and creative textbook explains how to write humor, comedy, satire, parody, nonsense, and both the literary and the joke monologue. Through its close analyses of short stories, sketches, essays, and scripts, it is a must-read for serious and not-so-serious writers of every genre. Guiding aspiring writers through the many techniques for creating humor, it illustrates and analyzes what works and what doesn't, suggests ways to energize passages that fall flat, and offers insights into brainstorming, team writing, and revision. This book includes the history and cultural background of each major genre, followed by a rich array of writing exercises. Readers will find an inventive selection of examples to learn from, including a script from M*A*S*H and pieces by such humorists as Woody Allen, Ogden Nash, and Art Buchwald-and by students as well.

Much of today's communication is carried out through various kinds of humor, and we therefore need to be able to understand its many aspects. Here, two of the world's leading pioneers in humor studies, Alleen and Don Nilsen, explore how humor can be explained across the numerous sub-disciplines of linguistics. Drawing on examples from language play and jokes in a range of real-life contexts, such as art, business, marketing, comedy, creative writing, science, journalism and politics, the authors use their own theory of 'Features, functions and subjects of Humor' to analyze humor across all disciplines. Each highly accessible chapter uses a rich array of examples to stimulate discussion and interaction even in large classes. Supplemental PowerPoints to accompany each of the 25 chapters are available online, taking many of the insights from the chapters for further interactional discussions with students.

This reference book is designed as a road map for researchers who need to find specific information about American mass communication as expeditiously as possible. Taking a topical approach, it integrates publications and organizations into subject-focused chapters for easy user reference. The editors define mass communication to include print journalism and electronic media and the processes by which they communicate messages to their audiences. Included are newspaper, magazine, radio, television, cable, and newer electronic media industries. Within that definition, this volume offers an indexed inventory of more than 1,400 resources on most aspects of American mass communication history, technology, economics, content, audience research, policy, and regulation. The material featured represents the carefully considered judgment of three experts -- two of them librarians -- plus four contributors from different industry venues. The primary focus is on the domestic American print and electronic media industries. Although there is no claim to a complete census of all materials on print journalism and electronic media -- what is available is now too vast for any single guide -- the most important and useful items are here. The emphasis is on material published since 1980, though useful older resources are included as well. Each chapter is designed to stand alone, providing the most important and useful resources of a primary nature -- organizations and documents as well as secondary books and reports. In addition, online resources and internet citations are included where possible.