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Licensed Unlicensed Requires Authentication Published by De Gruyter Mouton February 22, 2019

Lessons learned about humor from J.C.H. Davies and examples in his home collection

  • Goh Abe

    Goh Abe is a Lecturer at Faculty of Engineering and Design at Kagawa University. His research interests include rituals of laughter in Japan, ethnic jokes, intercultural communication between African-Americans and Anglo-Americans in the USA, and an anthropology of anthropological knowledge.

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From the journal HUMOR

Abstract

This essay starts with a story about Christie’s collections at his home from around the world that he collected during his field research. The postcard from Australia on an Aussie Gentlemen fits into his description of Australians in the jokes as “coarse Australians”. Christie explained the Essexgirl jokes in London and I learned the importance of contexts hidden behind the jokes such as socio-cultural characteristics, mobility and social division in UK. Christie’s analysis of the Japanese jokes about stupidity revealed the prototype of ethnic jokes in Japan.From the episode at his home in Reading I will reflect on his father’s influence on his humor research.

About the author

Goh Abe

Goh Abe is a Lecturer at Faculty of Engineering and Design at Kagawa University. His research interests include rituals of laughter in Japan, ethnic jokes, intercultural communication between African-Americans and Anglo-Americans in the USA, and an anthropology of anthropological knowledge.

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr Jessica Milner Davis for having edited my article and her help with obtaining permissions from the company to quote postcard produced in Australia.

References

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Published Online: 2019-02-22
Published in Print: 2019-05-27

© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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