Four Poems

Individual poem titles: Whales Are Small, The Sale, If Nine, Opinion

Aristotle And The Paradox Of Tragedy

In lieu of an abstract, below is the essay\u27s first paragraph. The paradox tragedy in simple terms may be stated thus: human misery is repulsive to us in real life, yet it somehow pleases us in tragedy. Indeed, tragedy is considered by many to be man\u27s highest art form, and to classify a play as a tragedy is to predicate value of it. Why do we get pleasure from reading or watching drama in which our fellow human beings are portrayed as suffering? If anyone would object that we do not take pleasure in tragedy as in a sizzling steak, let him substitute some other word. Why do we receive satisfaction from tragedy, or why do we want to see tragedy

Does Death Render Life Absurd?

In this paper, I assess the claim that death renders life absurd. First, I characterize absurdity as something we perceive in situations involving extreme disharmonies which strike us as unexpected or unacceptable. Next, I outline several potential disharmonies which death might introduce into our existence (such as the disharmony between our dignity and capacities, and the undignified annihilation which death promises), but suggest that these examples need not be seen as necessarily absurd; there are perspectives available to us from which these facts can appear to be acceptable aspects of life. Finally, I consider a more problematic case of absurdity—that human beings allegedly fail to grasp the truth of their mortality—but suggest that the underlying disharmony here can be eliminated provided we develop an authentic attitude toward death (and that this is possible, despite some objections). In short, I argue that none of the most obvious potential absurdities which might arise from our mortality are strong enough to entail the claim that death inevitably renders life absurd, at least on one plausible and interesting interpretation of that claim

Funny walking : the rise, fall and rise of the Anglo-American comic eccentric dancer

This article will attempt to reposition comic eccentric dance as a metamorphic form that still, surprisingly, exists, and is to be found with reasonable ubiquity, in renewed incarna-tions within twenty first century media. Tracing the origins of comic eccentric dance through examples of earlier comedy performance, and drawing from Bergson’s comic theory of body misalliance, this article will dis-cuss this particularly ludic fusion of music and comedy. Further changes to the form affected by modernist preoccupations during the new Jazz Age at the turn of the twentieth century will be suggested. Finally, ways in which the formulation lives on in twenty-first century in-carnations in the comedy work of, for instance, Jimmy Fallon and Ricky Gervase, and in popular television shows such as Strictly Come Dancing (BBC 2004 - ) and Britain’s Got Talent (ITV 2006 - ) will be posited

Moving Forward in Fostering Humour: Towards Training Lighter Forms of Humour in Multicultural Contexts

The following theoretical position paper has the aim to outline two important future directions of humour intervention research. Firstly, existing humour trainings have not differentiated explicitly between different uses of humour or humour that may be virtuous or not. Within the realm of Positive Psychology, all virtuous forms of humour need to be identified and interventions developed that aim at fostering these benevolent/lighter forms. Secondly, most humour trainings have been adapted and conducted in one cultural context. Future trainings should consider cross-cultural perspectives to allow for comparative research and practice. Thus, the current paper first gives an overview on the extant literature on the distinction between lighter and darker forms of humour, as well as showing how humour can serve the virtues proposed by Peterson and Seligman (2004). Then, we elaborate on the findings on humour and well-being, as well as findings on existing humour interventions. The second section starts with open questions and hypotheses on how a new generation of trainings targeting lighter forms of humour could look like. Then, we discuss (potential) cultural differences in humour and how this may affect the design of interventions. When aiming for cross-cultural adaptations of the same humour program, several challenges have to be overcome, such as the term “humour” not having the same meaning in every culture, and cultural rules on what can be laughed at