Indiana University Press blog

Book review: Finding Persephone

"[This] volume spans nearly a millennium of the Greco-Roman world. It offers a snapshot of the best work in a burgeoning subfield. Especially welcome is the fresh attention paid to issues of female agency, local differentiation in cult practices, and the precise literary, material, and socio-political contexts of our evidence." —Journal of Folklore Research

Author event: Henry Glassie to give plenary address at American Folklore Society meeting

IU Press author Henry Glassie will give the opening plenary address at the annual meeting of the American Folklore Society, which takes place Oct. 12-15 in Bloomington. Henry will speak on "War, Peace, and the Folklorist’s Mission" Oct. 12 at 8 p.m. in Alumni Hall. This lecture is free and open to the public.

Several other IU Press authors will be presenting or attending the meeting. For a complete schedule of events, visit the conference's website.

Henry Glassie is College Professor Emeritus of Folklore at Indiana University Bloomington. He is author of numerous books, most recently Prince Twins Seven-Seven (IUP 2010).

Book review: Ramayana Stories in Modern South India

"On the surface ... it might appear challenging for an anthology of Ramayana Stories in Modern South India to tell us something new about the epic. This is, however, precisely what Paula Richman has been able to do through this lively and engaging volume. ... The translations ... are lucid and of consistently high quality. ... The utility of this book for active undergraduate learning cannot be overstated." —H-Asia

Book review: A Motif Index of The Thousand and One Nights

"El-Shamy’s motif index will certainly be helpful for students of The Thousand and One Nights in finding their way through the ever-expanding corpus of material." —Journal of American Folklore

 

Book review: The Epic of Kelefaa Saane

"[A] valuable work for understanding African poetry traditions. ... The book is a fine scholarly contribution that will stimulate further scholarship." —Journal of Folklore Research

Author interview: Christie Davies (Jokes and Targets)

Jokes and Targets takes up an appealing and entertaining topic—the social and historical origins of jokes about familiar targets such as rustics, Jewish spouses, used car salesmen, and dumb blondes. In the analysis, author Christie Davies explains why political jokes flourished in the Soviet Union, why Europeans tell jokes about American lawyers but not about their own lawyers, and why sex jokes often refer to France rather than to other countries. We recently caught up with Davies to find out more about this fascinating topic, his book, and to see if he was willing to reveal his favorite joke.

How did you first become interested in the subject of humor, and why is it important to study it?

I have always loved humor all my life as a reader, viewer, performer, and writer, and have published a book of humorous short stories, two joke-books, and hundreds of humorous, satirical, and ironic articles. However my academic work was on the history, sociology, and politics of morality, culminating in my book The Strange Death of Moral Britain. Then the very first scholarly conference on humor in Cardiff in 1976 led me to take up the study of humor, and I gave several papers on the subject at various universities. In 1982 I published my first article in a leading journal, the British Journal of Sociology, and shortly afterwards [I received] a letter from an editor at Indiana University Press who had read the article and invited me to write Ethnic Humor Around the World. It was to be the first of my five books about humor. A book is much improved if the author is in love with his subject.

It is crucial to study humor because it is so important to ordinary people both as an intense form of pleasure and as time off from the tedium and restraints of everyday life. It is a far more difficult topic to analyze than is generally thought, and it takes an experienced professional scholar to write about it.

What makes a good joke? 

A good joke has an engaging narrative and a sudden and unexpected punch line. It breaks one of the inhibiting conventions about how we are supposed to speak in polite company or when being rational communicators.

What is your favorite joke?

My favorite jokes tend to be esoteric or unprintable.

So lets go with

Butler: That beggar is at the door again? He claims to be a relative of yours.

Aristocrat: He must be some kind of idiot!

Butler: I agree my lord but that hardly disproves his claim.

Why do some jokes emerge and become ubiquitous?

Jokes are not invented by gag writers. They emerge from the social interactions of individuals, but now increasingly spread via the internet. Jokes come in cycles, as with disaster jokes, ethnic jokes, lawyer jokes, and blonde and Essex girl jokes. Explaining particular joke cycles is the purpose of this book. In totalitarian societies such as the former Soviet Union, jokes were truly ubiquitous since they were time off from the oppressiveness of always having to guard what you said.

What inspired you to write this book?

I wanted to explore kinds of jokes—lawyer jokes, banker jokes, Jewish jokes about Jewish gender roles, Soviet jokes, jokes about sex (the French and sex, blondes and sex, and sex between men)—that I had never thoroughly investigated before and place them in their social and historical context. Also I wanted to build a new and better model explaining why such disperate groups such as orthopedic surgeons, marines, aristocrats, athletes, Newfoundlanders, blondes, carabinieri, and Sikhs become the butt of stupidity jokes while others do not.

What type of research went into discovering the jokes and their origins?

The key source is folklore archives which also record who told the joke, where the teller had heard it, and what it meant to them, and also simply individuals telling me jokes in person or by email. Joke books in many languages are also important as are internet postings. Wide reading in history and biography also provides good jokes which the authors of these works have placed in context.

Was there a society or group whose humor and jokes were most interesting to study?

Jewish jokes. The Jews invent more varied and more intricate jokes than another group.

How is this book different from your previous IU Press book, Ethnic Humor Around the World? 

It is much broader in scope and deals with jokes about professions and social classes, sex jokes, and political jokes which were not in the earlier book. This one is comprehensive.

What resources should readers consult to find out more information about humor and jokes?

They should check out the website of ISHS, the International Society for Humor Studies and join the organization, enroll at the annual Summer School and Symposium on Humour and Laughter, and read all my other books about humor.

Henry Glassie to deliver Haskins Prize Lecture at ACLS Annual Meeting

IU Press author Henry Glassie will give the Charles Homer Haskins Prize Lecture at the 2011 American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Annual Meeting, which takes place May 5-7 in Washington, D.C. A dinner will be held in Glassie's honor in the Great Hall of the Library of Congress.

To learn more about the ACLS Annual Meeting and the Charles Homer Haskings Prize Lecture, please visit the ACLS website.

Henry Glassie is College Professor Emeritus of Folklore at Indiana University Bloomington. He is the author of numerous books including Prince Twins Seven-Seven, Passing the Time in Ballymenone, and The Potter's Art, among others.

Join us for a Folklore and Ethnomusicology book party!

IU Press and the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology are co-hosting a book party this Friday, Dec. 3, from 3:00 - 5:00 p.m. at the Wells House on the IU-Bloomington campus. The party celebrates the publication of three books by IU faculty members:

Prince Twins Seven-Seven: His Art, His Life in Nigeria, His Exile in America by Henry Glassie (IU Press, 2010)

The Making of a Reform Jewish Cantor: Musical Authority, Cultural Investment by Judah Cohen (IU Press, 2009)

The Fast Runner: Filming the Legend of Atanarjuat by Michael Robert Evans (University of Nebraska Press, 2010)

A small reception will follow the brief presentation of each of these volumes. For more information, contact the Folklore and Ethnomusicology Department at folkethn@indiana.edu.

Book review: India's Immortal Comic Books

"In India’s Immortal Comic Books ... Karline McLain argues that the Amar Chitra Katha (ACK) comic book series represents a form of public culture through which creators and readers participate in national and religious discourse.  ...This analysis of India’s first major comics publisher invigorates folklore and comic art by illustrating their essential role in creating and revising national and religious identity." —Jeremy Stoll, Journal of Folklore Research

Book award: The Grace of Four Moons wins Coomaraswamy Book Prize

Congratulations to Pravina Shukla whose book The Grace of Four Moons was awarded the Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy Book Prize for the best English-language work in South Asian studies.

The award was presented yesterday at the Association for Asian Studies annual meeting.

To see past winners of the Coomaraswamy Book Prize, please visit the AAS list.