Not All Claps and Cheers

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Foreword and acknowledgment

Because humor is an ageless phenomenon, “philosophers, literary critics, literary biographers and historians, sociologists, folklorists, psychologists, physicians and scholars from various other disciplines have studied humor since antiquity” (Apte, 1988: 8). Yet over the centuries, these researchers have also struggled to conceptualize a viable, well-accepted notion of humor. The challenge continues to confound us and elude clear definition. Taking diverse forms at various times and in different situations, with an all-pervasive scope, humor does not always look the same—even if a reasonable consensus indicates that it involves some “intentional verbal or nonverbal message which elicits laughter, chuckling, ...