Tragic Laughter: Laughter as Resistance in the Book of Job

Claassens, L. Juliana

doi:10.1177/0020964314564844

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…(pp. 27-28) In addition to playful laughter, Claassens (2015) argues for the importance of "tragic laughter" in order "to survive, as a means of maintaining one's subjectivity and dignity in the midst of dignity-denying circumstances" (p. 155). For Bussie (2007), tragic laughter is a subversive form of protest, and survival strategy, that exhibits a transformative effect in criticizing the status quo and resisting oppressive systems by refusing to bend to the will of those in power and to internalize the oppressor's values.…”

Section: Reflectionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Making a Spectacle of Oneself in the Academy Using the H-Index: From Becoming an Artificial Person to Laughing at Absurdities

Sparkes

2021

Qualitative Inquiry

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This article offers autoethnographic insights into the consequences of making a spectacle of oneself in the audit culture of the academy. Spectacle 1 explores my experiences of using the h-index as part of an annual salary review and how this made me feel like an artificial person. Spectacle 2 shows how, at a conference, I used laughter to expose some absurdities of the h-index and felt better for doing so. Stories that tell different truths about ourselves in combination with the corporeality of laughter, I suggest, can assist us to re-attune ourselves and resist the process of becoming artificial persons.

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Section: Reflectionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Making a Spectacle of Oneself in the Academy Using the H-Index: From Becoming an Artificial Person to Laughing at Absurdities

Sparkes

2021

Qualitative Inquiry

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“…Yet at the same time, their overstated nature only serves to highlight the poignant nature of the character Job's suffering. Claassens suggests this forms a type of 'tragic laughter' (Claassens 2015). 85 It is possible to push this theory a little further, however, by understanding the deity attack metaphors in Job as being at once deeply tragic yet also the polar opposite: outrageous, peculiar, and comical.…”

Section: 'The Arrows Of Shaddai': Job's Body and The Deity Attack Metaphor In Jobmentioning

confidence: 99%

Job's Body and the Dramatised Comedy of Moralising

Southwood¹

2020

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This book focuses on the expressions used to describe Job's body in pain and on the reactions of his friends to explore the moral and social world reflected in the language and the values that their speeches betray.A key contribution of this monograph is to highlight how the perspective of illness as retribution is powerfully refuted in Job's speeches and, in particular, to show how this is achieved through comedy. Comedy in Job is a powerful weapon used to expose and ridicule the idea of retribution. Rejecting the approach of retrospective diagnosis, this monograph carefully analyses the expression of pain in Job, focusing specifically on somatic language used in the deity attack metaphors, in the deity surveillance metaphors, and in the language connected to the body and social status. These metaphors are analysed in a comparative way using research from medical anthropology and sociology which focuses on illness narratives and expressions of pain.Job's Body and the Dramatised Comedy of Moralising will be of interest to anyone working on the Book of Job, as well as those with an interest in suffering and pain in the Hebrew Bible more broadly.

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“…The mocking tone is shared by the creatures themselves. Their laughter interrupts and destabilises the structures intended to subdue their spirit (Claassens 2015). The butt of their joke is human attempts at control.…”

Section: Have Been a Brother To Jackalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dehumanisation as Derision or Delight? Overcoming Class-Prejudice and Species-Prejudice in Job

Millar

2020

Biblical Interpret.

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In Job 30:1–8, Job dehumanises his detractors: he depicts his low-class opponents as vile creatures in the wilderness. Dehumanisation has been a common strategy to devalue outgroups from Job’s time to our own. It functions by assuming a human-animal hierarchy (in which animals lack value), and mapping it onto a social hierarchy, delegitimising the animalised individuals at the bottom. By using this strategy, Job reveals his prejudice around other species and low classes. The logic of the divine speeches, however, overturns both these prejudices. The speeches respond to Job’s classism, not by denying that low-class humans are animals, but rather by celebrating animals (38:39–39:30). For Job, the non-human was a source of derision; for God it is a source of delight.

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Tragic Laughter: Laughter as Resistance in the Book of Job

Cited by 6 publications

References 2 publications

Making a Spectacle of Oneself in the Academy Using the H-Index: From Becoming an Artificial Person to Laughing at Absurdities

Making a Spectacle of Oneself in the Academy Using the H-Index: From Becoming an Artificial Person to Laughing at Absurdities

Job's Body and the Dramatised Comedy of Moralising

Dehumanisation as Derision or Delight? Overcoming Class-Prejudice and Species-Prejudice in Job

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