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As a writer, editor, scholar, and activist, Toni Cade Bambara left an indelible imprint on African American literature and Black feminist thought. This article elucidates Bambara's significance to Black women's humorous practice and articulates the mutuality between Black feminism's ongoing project to render Black women visible and to recover and engage in the bounty of Black women's humorous expression. Through her "cut on the bias" approach to using humor in the short story "Medley," Bambara offers an "alternate design sensibility" of racial and gender difference that illuminates the perspective of being Black and female. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the intersection of humour and humanitarianism in engaging Northern audiences with global Southern poverty issues. It analyses witty social media campaigns that critique humanitarian practices and Africa's representation, notably What's Up Africa (WUA) on YouTube, Radi‐Aid on YouTube, Humanitarians of Tinder on Tumblr and Barbie Savior on Instagram. Using 'contraflow', it shows how humour and positionality shape reception. WUA's Black African‐centric comedy, particualrly, highlights the often‐underexplored role of race in development discourse, challenging the White institutional core of humanitarianism. These insights reveal power dynamics and invite further academic inquiry into the transformative potential of comedic humanitarian critique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article shares the story about the wedding ceremony of Catherine and Anthony at Ferndale Library in Washington where Catherine works as a clerk. It considers the Ferndale Library as the safe place and attributes the decision of the couple to hold their wedding ceremony at Ferndale Library to the sense of belonging that Catherine feels in this place. Also noted is the taking of photos of the couple at the main library area after the ceremony.

The representation of "pest" animals in mass media can reflect wider societal attitudes about belonging, race, and purity. In New Zealand, the Australian brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula) is portrayed as the nation's top enemy. This project examined online news articles published in New Zealand between 2016 and 2023 to explore how possums were framed after the creation of the Predator Free 2050 "pest" eradication campaign that sought to eradicate all invasive rats, stoats, and possums. Through a process of qualitative thematic analysis, it was discovered that themes of militancy, economy, and desensitization of cruelty were paired with dark humor and extreme objectification of possums. This has created a culture of creaturely racism and speciesist xenophobia that presents cruelty as patriotism. A new media ethics that prioritizes an intersectional, anti-speciesist praxis is necessary to prevent the nation's enculturation of vigilante slayers who are encouraged to kill those deemed to not belong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Vietnamese cinema industry today, state-sponsored (formerly known as revolutionary cinema) and commercial cinema (held by private entertainment groups) are the two cinema mainstreams that dominate the film market. The third, but lesser known, mode is a diverse range of new independent films. With an aesthetics of socialist realism, governmental cinema often shows less “dream” in the ordinary, personal, and secular sense. However, it often turns to grand visions and symbols that impress upon the whole community concepts like “a brighter tomorrow.” Meanwhile, commercial cinema follows the capitalist model of cultural reproduction, presenting pragmatic dreams about a prosperous, successful, and beautiful life to stimulate viewers to work, consume goods and services for tourism and entertainment, and accumulate wealth. Meanwhile, young independent directors of the 1990s generation in Vietnam today are deploying the cinematic language of black comedy and magical realism to resist the pragmatic consumerist and “land of tomorrow” ideologies of the two mainstream tendencies. In the movies of the independents, dreamlike and fanciful elements occupy equally important, essential, organic places. Dreaming becomes a way of escaping the politics of the space or the ideologies embedded in dreams of the future that influence people consciously and subconsciously. This paper also explores the possibility that Vietnamese independent films can create new narrative potentials and interpretations of people’s inner lives in the postsocialist era through a unique and anti-traditional cinematic aesthetic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Campus novel, also called "academic novel", a sub-genre of the novel which has gained a global readership portray academic life in a college or a university setting while highlighting the follies of the people related to academics. Usually when we think of academics, our mind is filled with a very imaginary idealistic notions of that place and people related to it. But as opposed to this idealistic image, campus novels very interestingly bring out the tension between the idealism and corruption. Novelists through this genre have tried to bring out that harsh and corrupt reality of academics which usually remain hidden under the blanket of its ideal image. Campus novels make use of several narrative mode and literary devices to uncover the unacceptable truth of campus life. Black humor is one such sub-genre of comedy and satire which seems to be present silently in some campus novels through which readers are exposed to that insidious politics which remain hidden under the mask ideal image of so called learned community of society. This paper is an attempt to show how depiction of black humor has successfully brought out the seriousness of the themes discussed in campus novels while entertaining the readers at the same time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Dignity (al-Karama) Uprising of May of 2021 broke many "rules of engagement" between Palestinians and the settler state of Israel, including that of sarcasm and humor. Spreading swiftly from Jerusalem to all of historic Palestine, the uprising defied cooptation by the Palestinian Authority, an entity that has long maintained a buffer between its people and the settler state. Hence, and throughout the confrontations, a point-blank range was created allowing for the usage of all sorts of "weapons" in the Palestinian people's humble arsenal, humor included. This essay, originally written during the uprising and in Arabic, records the Palestinians' ability to ridicule the Israeli settler violence to which it is subjected, through black comedy - "sprinkling sugar on their own death." By contextualizing the grand event of 2021 politically and culturally, and de-theorizing humor to its core, this article brings to the historical record the Jerusalemites' invention of "red humor," colored with their blood, that appeared in different performative acts targeting Israeli human power; military machinery; repressive policies; and modes of "negotiation." Tracing the "black" into the "red" in expressions of humor as a tool in the arsenal of this uprising offers a record of a powerful, and often used, means of empowerment and resistance for Palestinians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, Black communities have used humor to talk back to those in power while avoiding what the author calls "the dominant gaze." She argues that Black humor acts as a resistance, especially when considered through the lens of play. Drawing from cultural play literature, critical race studies, and the literature about Black humor, she considers two related case studies based on the hashtags #PermitPatty and #Karen to explore the response of Black people to white femininity. The first case concerns the circulation of the phrase "Permit Patty" in response to a white woman who called the police against a young Black girl for selling water on the sidewalk. The second details the use of the name "Karen" online, highlighting how white women align themselves with police to oppress African Americans. The author concludes that Black online users deploy elements of humor, such as the omniscient narrator and inverse stereotyping, to call attention to this reliance of white womanhood on the police state, often at the expense of Black and Brown people, and children in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the influence of new technologies on the social ideas of Kharkiv inhabitants in the late imperial period. The main methodological approach of this paper is the qualitative content analysis of the main Kharkiv periodical issues, such as «Utro», «Juzhnyj kraj», and «Zhalo». First of all, we studied the attitude toward the new transport system, such as tram and horse-drawn railway. The aviation as entertainment is described. Attention was paid to the criticism of telephone. The phenomenon of imagined invention is highlighted. In results, it was found that there was an ambivalent attitude to the innovation among Kharkiv inhabitants. On the one hand, it was positive and enthusiastic, on the other new technologies arose a fear, sometimes even a demonization of machines. Such negative view could be partly explained by imperfection and a risk of being injured, which increased by ignorance of safety rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the philosophical implications of black humor as exemplified in the play "The Threepenny Opera" by Bertolt Brecht. Black humor implies a link with nihilism which is the absence of value or meaning. In the play, there is an absence of true image of being and well-being because there is no awareness of what is right.

The concepts crime and punishment are mentioned together with human history, and constitute the basis of criminal law. Crime, which is defined as a punished act, is related to behaviors that are against customs, moral and laws. The individual who causes chaos is penalized with the criminal law that foresees the abolishing of acts that damage the society, and the society order and security are ensured again. Literate types are fictious works that bear the traces of life. The subject of crime and punishment, which is considered within the types based on narration, invite the individual towards harmony with various examples full of sanctions, giving concrete information on behaviors that act in violation of social order and their punishments. The crime and punishment phenomena are mentioned through humor in anecdotes described around a type. Anecdots are full of lived phenomenon that carry the traces of real life. Being a type that is concise yet full of intense narration, anecdotes criticize the individual and thus act as a mirror that enables the reader to see himself/herself. Anecdote types take a role at the main center, serving to the purpose of pronouncing and criticizing the problems of the society, generating solutions and taking the reader towards realization with ironical messages. Anecdotes are also a place of cultural memory. Nasreddin Hodja, who was a strong spokesman with multiple personality for the social subconscious identifying with the social realities of Turkish society, was often the guardian of public order and the enforcer of the law in his anecdotes. Nasreddin Hodja criticizes/punishes any actions that disturb the community without hesitating through the perspective of humor. Among those he punished, there are judges, statesmen, thieves, rulers as well as donkeys/oxen. In the background of punitive events seen in Nasreddin Hodja’s anecdotes such as bribery and theft, there are traces of historical and socio-cultural life of the century when Nasreddin Hodja lived/was cherished. The negative effects of historical and social events on the public such as the Crusades of the 13th century, the defeat in the Kösedağ War in 1243, the pressure of Mongols, the disorder of the state governance, etc. were also reflected in the anecdotes. The greatest basis that Anatolian people stood on in this dark age full of depressions were the wisdom-filled words of Hz. Mevlana and Yunus Emre and the anecdotes of Nasreddin Hodja that make you think and educate while making you laugh. The aforementioned scholars aimed to reach the people with the power of love, tolerance and belief and to give them tenacity, joy of life and the power to stand, and they endeavored to reintegrate the individual, who made a mistake, into society by ending the crimes committed. The examples of crimes and punishments identified in Nasreddin Hodja’s anecdotes are the reflections of the century in which he lived / was cherished, and show the similarity of written law and oral law. Punishment in the anecdotes of Nasreddin Hodja have been imposed on directing/changing the behaviors of individuals, establishing the delayed justice, maintaining social order, ensuring social control, etc. The individuals with opposing values have been criticized with the aforementioned punishments, and the malevolent types who broke the moral rules, disrupted the integrity of the society and gave false testimony have been punished and legal awareness has been created. While the diversity of crimes and punishments seen in Nasreddin Hodja’s anecdotes were being conveyed based on the relationship of humor, irony, black humor and laughter, the economic, cultural, political and social deformities of the period lived in have been criticized. Thus, the aim is to raise awareness of individuals and enable them to find the right way in terms of governing-governed, by questioning the reasons for the repeated mistakes and the disrupted order. The purpose of this study is to classify the crimes and penalties in the anecdotes of Nasreddin Hodja. In this study, qualitative research method and hermeneutics method are used and also it is also analysed from Nasreddin Hodja anecdotes in various sources. Two basic types of crimes were identified in the anecdotes of Nasreddin Hodja; crimes with social context (theft/extortion, damaging property, perjury, slander, etc.), and crimes against the state (misconduct, bribery, embezzlement, cruelty towards public, etc.). Criminal sanctions like tattooing, riding on donkey, ridiculing, condemnation, insulting, laughing, etc. were applied against these crimes. As a result of the investigations on the anecdotes of Nasreddin Hodja, it is seen that written and oral laws were similar. In the texts, legal awareness was raised by punishing evil types who violated ethical codes and the integrity of society and did perjury. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Video game content has evolved over the last six decades, from a basic focus on challenge and competition to include more serious and introspective narratives capable of encouraging critical contemplation within gamers. The "No Russian" mission from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 casts players as terrorists responsible for the murder of innocent bystanders, sparking debate around how players engage and react to wanton violence in modern video games. Through thematic analysis of 649 Reddit posts discussing the mission, 10 themes emerged representing complexity in player experiences. Those themes were grouped into categories representing (descending order), (1) rote gameplay experiences, (2) dark humor, (3) comparing the mission to other games and real-world events, and (4) self-reflective eudaimonic reactions to the mission. Although less common, the presence of eudaimonic media effects (in at least 15% of posts) holds promise for the use of video games as reflective spaces for violence prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a comparative analysis of Henrik Ibsen's play En folkefiende [An Enemy of the People, 1882] and its adaptation into a graphic novel by Javi Rey (2022). The plot revolves around Dr Tomas Stockmann's discovery that the water of the touristic baths of his hometown is polluted and his futile attempt to convince his fellow citizens to take action. I argue that this can be read as an allegory of specific aspects of the Anthropocene. Moreover, while both works address the production of ignorance about human environmental change, the graphic novel possesses medium-specific ways of depicting the gap between knowledge and action. Finally, while the play is a black comedy, the graphic novel conveys a stronger faith in democratic pedagogy, adapted to twenty-first-century discourses on climate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses about surrealist movement which starts in the early 90's by Andre Breton and Phillipe Soupault, with the aim to "resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality". The article also focuses on the use of black humor in one of the earliest and most important surrealist cinema, Un Chim Andalou by elaborating the segments that produces black humor.