Humor, Psyche, and Society: A Socio-Semiotic Analysis

The book gives a unique possibility for the reader to be involved and, within it, travel in time and space. The author is open to present his unique and fruitful experience in research, teaching, and traveling taking the reader to the journey to meet jokes of different nations, ideas they imply, and theories on jokes, just as scientists who built theories to be applied for better comprehension and studies. The book is rich in citations and the author’s drawings of famous people involved in discussion. Some of them make you think, while others smile or laugh appreciating humor in a variety of ways.

By narrating the author also teaches the reader how to be effective in idea development. With his own style of writing the author represents his and others’ vision of humorous realities covering global and local spaces together with genre, format, and discourse communities’ representations (Jewish, Russian, American …). A joke is a healer but also a threat-bearer, just as a special phenomenon and a special language that changes the scenery of politics and everyday life.

Finally I should say that the material of the book collected by the author out of previous research writings and adopted for a current reader is a real present for all of us who enjoy life in its various happenings whenever they turn us to smile or a good laugh. I would definitely recommend it to the students writing research on communication and discourse.

Irina Oukhvanova (Oukhvanova-Shmygova)

Founder of the scientific series of books “Discourse Linguistics and beyond”

This book is very well written and original in that it uses social-scientific methods to examine jokes and contextualises within a wider societal context.

Berger has a lovely style of writing that is enjoyable to read while educational at the same time. The book provides analyses of numerous examples that illustrate the structure of jokes. In an illuminating way these analyses are embedded in and related to semiotics, psychoanalysis and sociology.

I would recommend the book to those interested in the social-scientific study of humor as well as those generally interested in having a laugh while learning something we have not thought about before when responding to a joke.

Dr. Dirk vom Lehn

King's College London

Arthur Asa Berger is a name that resonates among those who come to semiotics aiming to grasp its fundamental principles of theory and practice. His many works in the field are both clear and insightful. As such, they allow everyone, from the neophyte to the veteran practitioner, to develop a clear purview of the field and what it implies for understanding human ideas. I myself have always been inspired by Berger’s lucid, yet discerning, writings. Without them, I would have taken a vastly different course. In Confessions of a Wandering Semiotician, Berger does it again. With fluid style and keen perception of subject matter, he takes us on his “wandering” into the field, and when it is over, we are much the wiser. This is required reading for anyone interested in semiotics and for anyone who may want to know what it is all about.

Marcel Danesi

Professor of Anthropology, University of Toronto

Arthur Asa Berger is a highly respected academic who is especially renowned for his work in media and communication studies, two areas in which he has published extensively. This particular volume consists of a collection of essays in and around the subject of humour in which he presents an original notion of “45 techniques” of humour and applies it throughout the book to a variety of jokes, dedicating entire chapters, for example, to Jewish and Russian jokes as well as sitcom dialogue. Berger’s scholarship is beyond doubt; the book is well written and conveys complex theories in a readable manner.

The book will certainly appeal to a wide variety of audiences, including academics in the humanities but also the general public.

Delia Carmela Chiaro

Professor, Department of Interpreting and Translation, University of Bologna