34.2284, Review: Humour in the Beginning

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LINGUIST List: Vol-34-2284. Tue Jul 25 2023. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 34.2284, Review: Humour in the Beginning

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Date: 20-Jun-2023
From: Portia Opare [opare at uni-bremen.de]
Subject: Applied Linguistics, Morphology: Dijkstra, van der Velde (eds.) (2022)


Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/33.3834

EDITOR: Roald Dijkstra
EDITOR: Paul van der Velde
TITLE: Humour in the Beginning
SUBTITLE: Religion, humour and laughter in formative stages of
Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism
SERIES TITLE: Topics in Humor Research   10
PUBLISHER: John Benjamins
YEAR: 2022

REVIEWER: Portia Opare

SUMMARY
“Humour in the Beginning: Religion, Humour and Laughter in Formative
Stages of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism” is a collection
of in-depth case studies on humour in religion. Edited by Roald
Dijkstra and Paul van der Velde and featuring a diverse set of
contributors, the volume provides a “kaleidoscopic, interdisciplinary
view” on the subject of humour and its intersection with four world
religions in their early, consolidative phases (Dijkstra and van der
Velde 2022, p.vii).
In her introductory paper to the volume, Giselinde Kuipers succinctly
sets out the purpose of the volume: that there is a dearth of
“systematic analysis of the various uses and styles of humour” and how
those styles interact with religion (Dijkstra and van der Velde 2022,
p.6). The broad purpose of the volume, therefore, is to fill in that
gap in knowledge by moving from mere anecdotal evidence on the
intersection of religion and humour to valid theories. These theories
should consequently prove capable of analysing how the pro-humour or
anti-humour stance of dominant religions “hold[s] under different
social and historical circumstance” (Dijkstra and van der Velde,
p.14).
Primarily, the volume’s target audience is scholars and researchers
investigating the subject of humour, particularly in the humanities.
Additionally, the volume is reader-friendly enough to be valuable to
non-specialized readers interested in understanding how today’s
dominant religions developed their permissive or non-permissive
attitudes to humour. This group of readers will have to grapple with
the sophisticated diction of academic-style papers. Words such as
“antigelastic,” “persiflage,” “curiosum” “vorlagen,” and “urtext” can
be intimidating, but at the same time, for the curious reader, they
present an opportunity for insightful reading and illuminating
engagement with a good dictionary.
 “Humour in the Beginning” is divided into five broad sections (Part
I-V). It opens with four essays on humour as a tool and topic in Part
I and closes with a conclusion summarizing how the various
case-studies dovetail into one another in Part V. Sandwiched between
Part I and Part V are three sections, each dealing with humour in
Christianity & Judaism (Part II); humour in Islam (Part III) and
lastly, humour in Buddhism (Part IV). As a specialized topic appealing
to a niche audience of humour scholars, the volume’s introductory
section goes a long way in setting out the scope and significance of
the book, inviting even non-specialized audiences to appreciate the
value of the volume.
The volume’s primary thesis is this: contrary to prevailing opinion
and literature, religion and humour are not eternal enemies (Dijkstra
and van der Velde, p.4). Whilst the common trope presents religion as
antagonistic to humour, the volume seeks to communicate that today’s
dominant religions have mostly found ways to negotiate the tensions
that “naturally build up around the points of contact between humour
and religion” (Dijkstra and van der Velde, p.12). The contributors do
not downplay the fraught relationship between religion and humour; in
fact, this tension is something almost every contributor acknowledges.
What the volume in general seeks to show is the fact that despite
humour and religion being odd bedfellows, they have co-existed in the
early phases of the religions under investigation.
Part I of the volume opens with Giselinde Kuiper’s “Humour, Risk and
Religion.” The essay establishes humour as both a potentially powerful
tool and a hindrance to religious consolidation. Here, one immediately
sees the subject matter problematized; one sees the fuzzy boundaries
that exist between humour as a potential for creating and sustaining
religious identity, and humour as disruptive for religious cohesion.
Kuipers’ paper is helpful for answering the question: “why does this
topic even matter?” In addition to her deft problematization, Kuiper’s
five-pronged characterization of the ingredients of humour outlined in
the volume’s introduction becomes a useful referential and analytical
point for most of the case-studies in the volume. By situating it in
the volume’s opening section, readers familiarize themselves with
these ingredients, which turn up repeatedly in the case-studies that
follow.
After Kuiper’s essay is Bernard Schweizer’s introductory essay titled
“Religion and Humour.” The essay outlines the justification and
problematizes the subject matter as well as the significance of the
inquiry, helping readers appreciate the scope of the volume. Moreover,
Schweizer highlights the limitations of the inquiry and explains why
the volume limits itself to case-studies as its primary data.
Thematically, Schweizer provides a relevant historical
contextualization in his attempt to explain what he describes as
“religious humour’s progressive liberalization,” especially in Western
Christianity (Dijkstra and van der Velde, p.13).
Schweizer’s introduction is followed by Inger N.I. Kuin’s “The
Unquenchable laughter of the gods,” an essay that explores the role of
humour amongst the Greek pantheon. Kuin’s contribution to the volume
is her exploration of humour as a social transaction, in line with
Sigmund Freud’s original argument. In addition to this exploration,
Kuin highlights the insight a focus on humour in antiquity, with its
feature of shared divine humour/laughter, brings to the conversation
of humour and religion.
Bringing the introductory section of the volume to a close is Yasmin
Amin’s incredibly useful essay “Is the Application of Modern Humour
Theories on Historical Cases a Joke?” In her essay, Amin takes on the
methodological pitfalls associated with research into humour by
referring to classical, historical, and contemporary
approaches/theories to the study of humour, and explaining how these
approaches prove inadequate for a holistic understanding of humour.
For Amin, existing approaches to humour tend to be reductive,
Western-centred and incapable of accounting for the contextual nature
of humour (Dijkstra and van der Velde, p.26) Amin does more than
merely identify inadequacies; in the concluding part of her essay she
recommends that “any research delving into historical instances of
humour, from different cultures, should employ a multi-methodological
approach, to include as many interacting variables as possible…a new
humour theory is necessary, one that is not western-centric…”(Dijkstra
and van der Velde, p.28). The diverse contributors of the volume seem
to share Amin’s recommendations, as is evidenced in the
multi-methodological approach the volume adopts.
In the section that follows, the review will discuss Parts I, II and
III, summarizing each of the fourteen case-studies.
The papers on Christianity and Judaism in Late Antiquity involve
case-studies by Roald Dijkstra, Vincent Hunink, Reuven Kiperwasser,
Pierluigi Lanfranchi, Floris Bernard, Nicole Graham and Ingvild Sælid
Gilhus. The section begins with Gilhus’s discussion of “Derisive
Laughter and Religious Identity in Ancient Christianity,” which uses
the Coptic Nag Hammadi texts as case-studies. Gilhus’s paper
highlights the subtlety of humour, particularly in her discussion of
the significance of Jesus’ smile. Her work also sheds light on the
laughter motif and its instrumentality for pedagogy. Coming after
Gilhus’s study is Nicole Graham’s gracious re-reading of one Clement
of Alexandria’s Paedagogus in a paper titled “Opponent or Advocate:
Exploring Clement of Alexandria’s Attitude towards Laughter.” In her
inadvertently witty case-study, Graham’s work is helpful for
appreciating the perception some early church fathers had about the
suitability and morality of laughter.
Next is Floris Bernard’s rather catchy title, “The Joke has gone on
for Long Enough”: Humour, derision, and allusion in the letters of
Gregory of Nazianzus.” Bernard’s work gives new insight into how the
otherwise stern, venerable, humourless early church fathers leaned on
the classical tradition of poetry, rhetoric, and philosophy (paideia)
to write humorous letters to one another while engaging with the
Bible, sometimes even poking fun and jesting. Here, one sees that even
the early church fathers “could make claim to urbane, witty eloquence”
just like their pagan neighbours (Dijkstra and van der Velde, p.74).
Bernard Floris’ light-hearted topic is followed by Pierluigi
Lanfranchi’s darker theme on “The Smile of the Martyr” and how the
martyr’s smile and jokes function as “an aggressive and provocative”
response to persecution by exposing persecution as stupid and absurd
(Dijkstra and van der Velde, p.91). His case-study is valuable in
explaining the apparent contradiction that is the early Christian
disapproval of excessive laughter (considered a sign of moral disorder
and emotional excess) versus its acceptance and esteem for smiling
(seen as a sign of wisdom and self-control.)
In his “Divine Mockery and Laughing Rabbis”, Reuven Kiperwasser
analyses how mockery and derision can – instead of alienating and
minimizing the religious ‘Other’ – work to “open a moment of potential
rapture in the continuity of interactions and produce some
re-organization in order to steer the interaction once more towards
continuity rather than towards chaotic turbulence” (Dijkstra and van
der Velde, p.93). Kiperwasser’s paper is particularly insightful for
researchers exploring the Old Testament with a primarily Christian
lens.
Bringing the section on Christianity and Judaism to a close is Roald
Dijkstra’s “Converting Comedians: ‘Humour and Laughter as a Way to
Interpret the Early Christian Mime Reports.” Dijkstra attempts to
establish the hypothesis that “it is possible that the mime reports
can be interpreted as the product of people who wanted to… combine the
entertainment of the theatre with the sincerity of the faith: not all
Christians strictly separated the time to weep and the time to laugh”
(Dijkstra and van der Velde, p.122).  Drawing the curtain to a close
on Part II, Hunink explores what is perhaps the only (with the
exception of Abu Nawal’s poetic parodies) case-study involving a text
that makes an overt attempt – through playful irreverence – to use
humour as an instrument of fun or mirth in his “Humour in the Cena
Cypriani.”
Part III of the volume details the section on The Qur’an and Early
Arabic Literature. The contributing writers here are Farooq Hassan,
Yasmin Amin, Geert Jan van Gelder and Ulrich Marzolph. Detailing a
thorough introduction to humour and its ethics as it pertains to the
Islamic world, Farooq Hassan’s paper is a strategically good opening
to the section. For readers who might have bought into the idea of
Islam as humourless and boorish, Hassan’s inclusion of The Prophet
Muhammed’s witticisms is useful in undoing such stereotypes. Hassan’s
paper stands out amongst the rest for a section in his conclusion
which recommends that humour be “promoted in Muslim societies through
various initiatives, such as the production of dramas with benign
humour and the discouragement of malignant humour that mocks and
divides people.” This practical recommendation helps shift the theme
of the volume from ‘mere’ theory to something concrete with practical
implications for society (Dijkstra and van der Velde 2022, p.152).
Yasmin Amin’s case study comes after Hassan’s in the volume. Referring
back to Bernard Schweizer’s introductory paper, Amin’s introductory
paragraph offers a useful analysis of Islam’s current attitude to
humour. Central to her discussion are the themes of anthropomorphism
and the notion of a “laughing God.” For a devout audience, the
implication of a laughing God as presented by Yasmin Amin is immensely
helpful. Even though her case-study becomes mildly long-winded at a
point, her work offers a useful resolution to what seemed to be a
sharp disagreement between Bernard Schweizer’s contribution and Inger
Kuin’s.
The case-studies that bring Part III to a close are Geert Jan Gelder’s
“Poetic Paradies of Islamic Discourses by Abu Nuwas” and Ulrich
Marzolph’s “Greek and Buddhist jokes and their Corresponding Versions
in Classical Arabic Literature.” Using material by a poet known for
his obscenity, jesting and crass contradiction of morality, van de
Gelder’s case-study stands out for its engagement with transgressive
humour in religion. On his part, Marzolph’s ambitious comparative
study of humour across three different traditions points to the
possibility of “the reception of originally foreign jokes that proved
to be adaptable to new surroundings” in Islam (Dijkstra and van der
Velde 2022, p.215).
Lastly, the section on Buddhism, making up Part IV of the volume
features case studies by Michel Dijkstra, Arjan Sterken and Paul van
der Velde. Michel Dijkstra’s captivatingly titled case-study, “How is
this Sutra Different from My Ass? Humour as a gateway to enlightenment
in Zen Buddhism” engages with humour and its capacity to cut through
illusion to result in liberating intimacy, and consequently, spiritual
insight. Arjan Sterken’s “Finicking Monkeys: Sun Wukong (Monkey King)
as a humorous force in the Chinese discourse of the Three Teachings”
engages extensively with the superiority theory of humour. Finally, in
“Are you really serious: The Buddha, the Brahmins and Humour in the
sramana traditions of India,” Paul van der Velde discusses humour,
jokes and puns, highlighting the importance of context for
appreciating how humorous a situation/text is.
All things considered, the contributors of the volume succeed in
communicating the idea that humour is an important subject worth
investigating. They communicate that humour is not just a fringe
interest of scholars, but its potential to bind as well as alienate
individuals is worthy of attention. For what is it is worth, humour is
a powerful form of communication; it forges social bonds by
highlighting similarities and shared concerns; it unites people in the
strong, pleasant emotional expression of laughter and it is one of the
most effective ways of creating and sustaining identities (Dijkstra
and van der Velde 2022, p.6). On the other hand, humour can be
“exclusive, raucous, transgressive, hostile and anti-hierarchical,”
holding immense potential for troubling boundaries (Dijkstra and van
der Velde 2022, p.6). If the events of our modern world involving how
humour in religion can result in tragic consequences is anything to go
by, then we ought to pay attention to Roald Dijkstra’s invitation to
collectively create a “context in which religious humour can thrive,”
regardless of our denomination or religiosity (Dijkstra and van der
Velde 2022, p.298).
EVALUATION
The evaluative section of this review will be grouped under six broad
themes: engagement with literature; structural and methodological
merits; tone and attitude; intertextuality; anticipation of criticism,
and lastly, shortcomings and substantive questions. I will begin with
engagement with literature.
  “Humour in the beginning” is only one of the many works arising out
of the active field of research into humour. One of the things the
volume gets right is its detailed interaction with existing literature
in the field. Each of the case-studies in the volume is marked by
citations and references that point readers to the existing and
evolving literature currently available on humour. The literature
includes both dated and contemporary works, and potential researchers
can tap into this rich storehouse in their own attempt to
contextualize humour. Further, the volumes’ engagement with the
existing literature is helpful for pointing its audience to themes and
areas that the volume merely broaches.
In situating “Humour in the Beginning” within the existing literature,
Dijkstra and van der Velde’s volume shares similarities, as well as
observable differences, with other works published in the field in the
20th and 21st centuries. The volume’s goal of marrying humour to
religion significantly sets it apart from most of the works
investigating humour. For example, such landmark works on humour such
as Authur Asa Berger’s “An Anatomy of Humour” (1993), Simon
Critchley’s “On Humour” (2011) and Paul McDonald’s “The Philosophy of
humour” (2013) all investigate the nature of humour from a
philosophical perspective. These works pursue questions like the
nature of humour, the ingredients of humour, the characteristics and
boundaries of the humorous, etc.
There seems not to be a large body of edited works dealing with humour
and its relationship to religion. Hans Geybels and Walter van Heck’s
“Humour and religion: Challenges and ambiguities” (2011) is one such
work that takes up the subject of religion and humour. Like “Humour in
the Beginning,” Geybels and van Heck’s book discusses how humour
functions constructively in different world religions. Apart from a
slightly pronounced view by Geybels and van Heck on religious humour
as a pathway to spiritual liberation, both works hold the assumption
that humour and spirituality are not odd bedfellows. Last but not
least, by investigating humour, comedy and satire in the Hebrew
scriptures, in antiquity and in the New Testament/early Christianity,
Terry Lindvall’s “God Mocks: A History of Religious Satire from the
Hebrew Prophets to Stephen Colbert” (2015) shares a similarity of
historical development of humour with “Humour at the Beginning.”
In terms of differences, “Humour in the Beginning” can be juxtaposed
to Idowu James Adekunle “Humour of religious satire and linguistic
dexterity of Nigerian stand-up comedy” (2022), Christie Davies’
“Scottish religion and Identity” (2000) and Andrei Murashko’s
“Laughter, carnival and religion in ancient Egypt” (2021). While
humour at a beginning considers the outplay of religious humour
cross-nationally, Adekunle, Davies and Murashko limit their
investigations to single nations. Additionally, Davies’ and Adekunle’s
works focus on religion in its present state, while “Humour at the
beginning” analyses humour at the foundational stages of religion. I
draw the curtain on literature review and shift the focus to the
book’s structural merits.
Several structural and methodological strategies worked together to
make “Humour in the beginning” a worthy read. First, the four
introductory essays of the volume contribute significantly to
fostering clarity as well as providing the necessary context and scope
to the volume. Likewise, the concluding essay by Roald Dijkstra
summariseds the contents of the volume and binds all the varied
insights in meaningful unison. Structurally, it is helpful that each
contributing case-study opens with an abstract and closes with a
summation of the major findings. Further, a number of the case-studies
feature catchy, witty titles. Witticism is definitely a helpful
strategy in a volume treating the topic of humour. Methodologically,
the volume’s multidisciplinary, comparatist approach truly goes to
show the editors’ commitment to presenting a robust and comprehensive
approach that engages meaningfully with the complex, multifarious
field of humour. Overall, the volume’s structural and methodological
merits contribute to the successful communication of its primary
thesis.
Perhaps “Humour in the Beginning’s” most notable merit is its tone and
attitude. Generally, the volume adopts a gracious and charitable
attitude to humour and its outplay in religion. Even while writing
about transgressive humour, contributors like Hunink successfully
balance the tension between the transgressive and the sacred. In an
increasingly polarized world where religion is no small contributor to
violence and conflict, it would have been incredibly easy to
demonize religion’s tendency to vilify humour and laughter.
Nonetheless, the volume adopts a benign – even hopeful – posture to
humour in religion. Almost every case-study in the volume points to
the fact that what many religions discourage is mean-spirited,
malignant humour, not humour in general. In addition to the gracious
attitude to religion, the contributors display an intellectual
humility by openly admitting the limitations of not just their
approach, but of their knowledge as well. As a result, one appreciates
that the contributors are aware of the complex task of investigating
humour in the early beginnings of religions, and that this awareness
leads them away from arriving at narrow conclusions on the topic at
hand.
The gracious attitude to their subject matter leads to the volume’s
other merit – its intra-volume referencing. In a true spirit of
openness and a commitment to a multi-disciplinary approach to
knowledge-creation, the contributors in the volume take on one
another’s work. They do so by referencing, challenging, augmenting and
expanding upon those works. Even in instances where there seems to be
significant disagreement – for instance in Kuin’s counter to
Schweizer’s paper – the general attitude is that of respect and
tolerance. Through the frequent reference to one another’s work, the
contents in the volume achieve a cohesiveness as the works dovetail
into each other, offering clarifications where necessary.
A capacity to anticipate criticism and questions is another merit of
“Humour in the Beginning.” This anticipation comes from the knowledge
by each contributor that humour – especially ancient humour in sacred
material – is a complex subject to investigate. For example, Geert Jan
van Gelder’s case-study includes guidepost questions, questions some
readers are likely to raise in their reading of the volume. Similarly,
Kuin, perhaps anticipating the question, clarifies the difference
between Homeric texts and sacred religious texts in her paper,
settling the reader’s questions and thus yielding a better
understanding of her work.
Overall, the volume has just a few shortcomings; in fact, one could
call them a reader’s mild wish that things had been done differently.
This review will draw attention to one shortcoming and lastly, raise a
question that I believe remained unanswered. First to the shortcoming:
regardless of the success of the four introductory essays, one could
not help but wish that Noël Carroll’s definition of humour, cited by
Roald Dijkstra in his concluding paper, had been one of the
introductory explanations to the concept of humour. Carroll’s nuanced
and apt definition, coming so belatedly in the volume, would have
answered an important question in the minds of some readers – “how and
why is this topic humorous?”
Finally, to the question: is there perhaps more that could have been
done to answer the question some readers may have, which is the
question of “is the incongruous always equivalent to the humorous?” To
some degree, Roald Dijkstra’s section sub-titled “Religious Humour for
Fun” answers this question, but again, it comes just so late in the
volume that readers cannot avoid being plagued by the question over
and over again.
A paraphrase of Roald Dijkstra’s closing sentence to the volume,
convincing in its summation of the significance of “Humour in the
Beginning” as a project seems like an apt conclusion to this review.
Context – time, place and situation - has the capacity to change the
nature and reception of humour. If context matters, then it is in our
hands as humans, no matter our religiosity or lack of it, to “create a
context in which religious humour can thrive” (Dijkstra and van der
Velde 2022, p.298).

REFERENCES
Adekunle, Idowu James. ''Humour of religious satire and linguistic
dexterity of Nigerian stand-up comedy.'' The European Journal of
Humour Research 10.1 (2022): 76-87.
Berger, Arthur Asa. ''An anatomy of humour.'' (1993).
Carroll, Noël. Humour: A very short introduction. OUP Oxford, 2014.
Critchley, Simon. On humour. Routledge, 2011.
Davies, Christie. ''Scottish religion, humour and identity.''
Informationes theologiae Europae 9 (2000): 35-48.
Geybels, Hans, and Walter Van Herck, eds. Humour and religion:
Challenges and ambiguities. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2011.Mugglestone,
Lynda, ed. The Oxford History of English. OUP Oxford, 2006.
Lindvall, Terry. God Mocks: A History of Religious Satire from the
Hebrew Prophets to Stephen Colbert. NYU Press, 2015.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Portia Dede Opare is a second-year MA student at the Universität
Bremen, Germany, studying English-Speaking Cultures. She is currently
working on semantic choices and its intersection with narratology and
postcolonial literatures. She has a keen interest in semantics,
stylistics, postcolonial fiction, as well as poetry.



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