Not Just a Laughing Matter

This book offers the first comprehensive and in-depth exploration of the way Chinese humor fits into broader discourses on Chinese identity and modernity in an increasingly globalized world throughout the period of modern China. It brings together the expertise of scholars from a variety of disciplines - history, literature, linguistics, anthropology, sociology and the study of popular culture - to examine the many forms and modes in which political humor is expressed in modern China: films, cartoons, the visual arts, oral performances and online satire.

Inhalt
Introduction.- Section one: Humor in the Late Qing and Early Republic.- Section Two: Cartoons for the Communist Cause.- Section Three: Humor in Cinema, from the Mao Era to the 21st Century.- Section Four: Spoken Humor in China.- Section Five: Spoken Humor in Hong Kong.- Section Six: High Technology and Satire.