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The Ha-Ha Holocaust: Exploring Levity Amidst The Ruins And Beyond In Testimony, Literature And Film, Aviva Atlani

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

ABSTRACT

Jewish humour sheds a crude light on the social, political, and historical realities of the Holocaust. Paradoxically, contentiously, doses of levity during this period were very much a reality, and even a psychological necessity. The purpose of my thesis is to explore the historical, social, and political ramifications of such laughter provoking manifestations. In doing so, the nuances are highlighted which are found within the laughter of the ghettos, the transit camps, and the concentration camps. Furthermore, some of these jokes, and their subsequent variations, reappear within the discourse of children of survivors. The dissertation explores how some of …

Punchline Predictability, Comprehension Speed, And Joke Funniness: Investigating Incongruity Theories Of Humour, Robert J. Fearman

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Surprise is an important element of many cognitive theories of humour (e.g., Suls, 1972): the less predictable the punchline, the funnier a joke is expected to be. Many theories also predict a curvilinear relationship between speed of joke comprehension and funniness: jokes that are too easy or too difficult should be less funny than those that require an intermediate amount of processing. This study was designed to investigate these two assumptions of past theories. Undergraduate psychology students (N = 183) participated online and completed two tasks. The Joke Completion Task required the participants to read the joke stem of …