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This essay discusses the construction of Mexico in the writings of André Breton as “the surrealist place par excellence.” I focus on Breton’s claim that Mexico is “the chosen land of black humor” through an analysis of his literary sources and his engagement with the printmaker José Guadalupe Posada. I then address Breton’s presentation of Mexico in France through the 1939 exhibition Mexique, which was Frida Kahlo’s Parisian debut, and the article “Souvenir du Mexique,” published in the surrealist journal Minotaure.

In this article we propose to analyze how healthcare personnel involved in organ and tissue procurement activities use black humor during their daily work. The objective here is twofold: on the one hand, following previous studies, we are interested in showing the role of black humor as a way of dealing with death. On the other hand, we suggest that, in a parallel and complementary way, in this context black humor exposes a performative sense as a form of agency that attempts to modify an adverse reality. This work combines the methodological tools provided by ethnography and conducting open, multi-session interviews. The events revealed during the fieldwork and interviews that associate humor and brain death show the uses, limits and ways in which black humor operates in daily healthcare work of physical and emotional complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article tries to study irony and humor (black humor) in Charles Bukowski’s Hollywood and Pulp in the light of Hutcheon’s theoretical framework on the idea of playfulness to see how they could be interpreted in terms of postmodern fiction. The previous researchers have considered Bukowski’s fictions; however, they did not regard them in respect of the concept of play. As a result, the aim of this study is to understand whether there is any relationship between Bukowski’s ironical humorous language and Hutcheon’s critical theories on irony and black humor as identifiable features of postmodern fiction or not? To achieve the end, the researcher is going to interpret these two novels’ verbal ironies regarding Hutcheon’s proposed ironic markers as well as the structural ironies and black humors with regard to the doctrines of the mentioned postmodern critic. Therefore, the analysis seems convincing enough not only to indicate the significant importance Hutcheon’s critical theories on postmodernism, but also to claim that these two novels consist of the outstanding aspects of postmodern fiction including irony and black humor.

The paper is dealing with the complex phenomenon of black humor. Starting from different definitions about its origin, the author questions its folklore origin in Greek antiquity. Through the prism of the theories of Olga Freidneberg and Michael Bakhtin, parody and/or carneval appear as a worldview contrary and at the same time parallel to the serious, official, hierarchical order. Exactly this image of the world, and conceptualization of death on its grounds, lead in ancient Greece to the appearance of the theatre and comedy, that is regarded to be the predecessor of black film comedies. Pointing out the intertwinement of laughter and death, as well as the existence of black humor in the Greek antiquity, the author also deals with interesting connection between film black comedies and Serbian performative ritual games with motives of death and the dead. Such motives and the atmosphere that they provoke are easily recognized in the Serbian black comedies. As an example, i.e. a case study is taken the film Marathon Family. Apart from that, the paper offers an insight into the theoretical approaches to the phenomenon of black humor in literature and film, which opens the space to trace two more intertwined paths of influence on the mentioned black comedies. One path is literary and goes back to comedies by Branislav Nušić - The bereaved family and The deceased, while the other leads to the whole genre of films with the dark humour that has developed since the 1960s in Europe and the USA. In spite of the undoubtable influences, the short insight into the subgenres of dark humour in the mentioned films reveals the specificity of the black humor in the Serbian cinematography that might be related to folk humoristic games with the motive of death.

The paper is dealing with the complex phenomenon of black humor. Starting from different definitions about its origin, the author questions its folklore origin in Greek antiquity. Through the prism of the theories of Olga Freidneberg and Michael Bakhtin, parody and/or carneval appear as a worldview contrary and at the same time parallel to the serious, official, hierarchical order. Exactly this image of the world, and conceptualization of death on its grounds, lead in ancient Greece to the appearance of the theatre and comedy, that is regarded to be the predecessor of black film comedies. Pointing out the intertwinement of laughter and death, as well as the existence of black humor in the Greek antiquity, the author also deals with interesting connection between film black comedies and Serbian performative ritual games with motives of death and the dead. Such motives and the atmosphere that they provoke are easily recognized in the Serbian black comedies. As an example, i.e. a case study is taken the film Marathon Family. Apart from that, the paper offers an insight into the theoretical approaches to the phenomenon of black humor in literature and film, which opens the space to trace two more intertwined paths of influence on the mentioned black comedies. One path is literary and goes back to comedies by Branislav Nušić - The bereaved family and The deceased, while the other leads to the whole genre of films with the dark humour that has developed since the 1960s in Europe and the USA. In spite of the undoubtable influences, the short insight into the subgenres of dark humour in the mentioned films reveals the specificity of the black humor in the Serbian cinematography that might be related to folk humoristic games with the motive of death.

The purpose of this thesis is to discuss the significance of literature written by the Japanese Language Generation in post-war Taiwan. This paper identifies the linguistic views and characteristics of the novels of Huang Ling-Zhi (1928-2016), who continued writing literary works in Japanese for more than sixty years in post-war Taiwan. Huang Ling-Zhi is a typical author of the Japanese Language Generation in Taiwan. He argues that writers are “subjects” who select and use the language most suitable for the theme of their work. His point of view about language does deconstruct linguistic nationalism. In Huang Ling- Zhi’s novels, the main characters meet unfortunate ends, but since a person’s unique thinking is given full expression, they are not tragedies, but forms of tragicomedies. The black humor of Huang Ling-Zhi’s novels is thought to be the product of Taiwan’s continued history of hardships before and after the war, and Huang Ling-Zhi’s own extreme circumstances due to illness. His novels are valuable material for Taiwanese history. In addition, the result of using black humor is that a major hallmark of his writing is the acquisition of a wider readership, which is not limited to those becoming fascinated by the Taiwanese setting.

Copyright of Journal of the Cukurova University Institute of Social Sciences is the property of Cukurova University Institute of Social Sciences and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The present paper focuses on intertextuality as a means of black humor in plays by Martin McDonagh, a famous British-Irish playwright. Nine of his plays have been translated into different languages and staged in theatres around the world. However, most theories of comic effect cannot explain the phenomenon of his popularity. This prompted the authors to search for the most accurate and least conditioned way to classify intertext as a means of comic effect in general and black humor in particular. As a result, they chose the semantic theory of humor by V. Raskin and the multidisciplinary general theory of verbal humor developed by V. Raskin and S. Attardo. These theories employ the notions of "script" and "opposition" to examine the linguistic nature of the joke. Using attributed and unattributed intertext inclusions as "signs" or "scripts", the authors analyzed McDonagh’s plays through the prism of this theory. The result was a system of scripts and oppositions that form the chronotope of a long text as opposed to that of a joke. The article also introduces the black humor mechanism in McDonagh's plays: it is based on references to the intertextual thesaurus of the potential reader / theatre audience.

In May 2014, comedian Leslie Jones faced backlash after making a joke about slavery during an episode of Saturday Night Live. During the “Weekend Update” sketch of the show, Jones, a Black woman, emphasized that although she was single now, she would have been a hot commodity during slavery. She added that after being hooked up with “the best brother on the plantation” by her massa, she would be popping out “superbabies” every 9 months. Although the show is known for testing the limits of comedy and poking fun at everything, Jones was criticized for making light of such a serious topic. In early 2018, however, Black Twitter picked up right where Jones left off and slavery became a topic of amusement online. Using words, gifs, memes, and videos, users reimagined the lives of enslaved African Americans during the 1600s in a comical manner. This online exchange was marked by the #TweetLikeThe1600s hashtag and went in a series of directions. In what follows, I locate the hashtag in a longer tradition of Black humor as well as analyze subsequent discussions about who is allowed in on the joke. Beyond the jokes themselves, these smaller and supplementary discourses inform my engagement with the subject.

Humor is generally known to effectively help individuals manage distress. Yet a variety of ways exist to engage in humor, and not all of them may be equally associated with desirable outcomes. The purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which dark humor is associated with the subjective well-being of United States military veterans. An online survey was announced on several social media pages populated by US veterans, to which 93 fully responded. Our findings indicate that the use of dark humor does not appear to be associated with a sense of connectedness, but the reported use of self-defeating types of dark humor was associated with lower levels of life satisfaction. Our hypothesis that increased feelings of connectedness to civilian and veteran/active-duty friends would predict increased reports of overall subjective well-being was supported. The implications of these findings for understanding the functions of dark humor are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concepts currently operating in much medical microbiome research bear a curious resemblance to an ancient tradition of Western medicine. This tradition, humoral medicine, is concerned with the four humors: yellow and black bile, phlegm, blood. Both humoral medicine and medical microbiome research use notions of imbalance and balance for broad explanations of disease and health. Both traditions also hold that the composition of humors or microbiomes determines bodily as well as mental states. Causality in each system is often conceived teleologically, meaning that humors or microbiomes "function for" the maintenance of the whole. And ultimately, each framework situates the humors or microbiomes in a multilevel interactionist theory that conceptualizes individual health within a broader environmental context. As well as critically assessing the parallels between these systems, this article sketches some explanations of how they may have arisen. The authors also evaluate the implications of these similarities for the future of medical microbiome research and suggest ways in which the field might move forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim. This study aims to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the absurdities inherent in combat events as depicted in Joseph Heller's novel, Catch-22. The study seeks to explore how Heller utilizes literary techniques such as sarcasm, black humor, and surrealism to portray the contradictions, irrationality, and overall absurd nature of war. Additionally, the study aims to unfold the deeper societal implications, including dehumanization and moral degradation, presented in the novel. Method. The research method employed in this study is primarily a qualitative literary analysis. The analysis involves a close examination of the text of Catch-22, focusing on the novel's characters, plot structure, narrative techniques, and the use of literary devices. It engages in critical interpretation and evaluation of how Heller employs sarcasm, black humor to convey the absurdities of war. Results. The study reveals that Joseph Heller employs a unique set of literary techniques, including non-sequential narrative, broken chronology, and cyclical motifs, to vividly capture the chaotic and absurd nature of combat events. The analysis uncovers recurring themes such as bureaucratic absurdities, loss of personal agency, dehumanization, and the existential toll of war. The study highlights the significance of the Catch-22 paradox as a central motif, illustrating the circular and illogical nature of bureaucratic processes during war. Conclusion. Joseph Heller's Catch-22 serves as a powerful critique of the absurdities prevalent in wartime. The Catch-22 paradox emerges as a symbolic representation of bureaucratic folly, encapsulating the struggle of individuals caught in the machinery of conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Issues in Ethnology Anthropology is the property of Issues in Ethnology Anthropology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This document is a review of two episodes from the television series "Masters of the Air." Episode 7 focuses on the 100th Bombardment Group's war experiences, including the challenges they faced and the changes in aerial strategy and tactics. It also explores the story of two American prisoners of war in a German camp. Episode 8 introduces the Tuskegee Airmen of the 99th Fighter Squadron and their ground attack role during World War II. The review highlights the realistic portrayal of the POW experience and the contributions of airpower during the D-Day invasion. [Extracted from the article]