Reseñas proporcionadas por Syndetics

CHOICE Review

With all the recent books on humor, this one fills an important niche. As a collection of jokes it extends the monumental work of G. Legman (Rationale of the Dirty Joke; An Analysis of Sexual Humor: First Series, CH, Mar '69, and Rationale of the Dirty Joke; Second Series, CH, Apr '76). Though not intended to be so thorough or so ontological as Legman's treatise, Dundes (University of California at Berkeley) shows that one does not have to leave home to do good folklore research. Nevertheless, the chapter on Rumanian political humor, collected on site, is among the most interesting. Many of the questions raised by Mahadev Apte's Humor and Laughter: An Anthropological Approach (CH, Jul '85) are addressed here. Furthermore, the ethical problems of ``sick'' humor that concern John Morreall in Taking Laughter Seriously (CH, Apr '83) and in The Philosophy of Laughter and Humor (1987) receive here blunt illustration and discussion. Finally, readers will be made aware of the subtlety of the connection between humor and personality, illustrated elsewhere by Harvey Mindess et al. in The Antioch Humor Test (1985), further discussed in Avner Ziv's Personality and Sense of Humor (CH, Nov '84). On the other hand, Cracking Jokes might be the best place to start on this literature-it is instructive, fun to read, and suitable for readers at all levels.-P.L. Derks, College of William and Mary

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

Anthropologist and folklorist Alan Dundes was born in 1934 in New York City. He received his BA in English in 1955 and his MAT in English in 1958, both from Yale University. He received his Ph.D in Folklore from Indiana University in 1962 and in 1963 he joined the teaching staff at the University of California, Berkley. He wrote over 250 journal articles and12 books and co-wrote more than 20 other books. In 1993, he became the first American to win the Pitre Prize's Sigillo d'Oro, which is an international life-time achievement award in folklore and ethnography. He died of a heart attack on March 30, 2004 at the age of 70.

(Bowker Author Biography)