The Wit and Humor of Oscar Wilde

The Wit and Humor of Oscar Wilde
Author: Oscar Wilde
Publisher: Courier Corporation
Total Pages: 276
Release: 1959-01-01
Genre: Humor
ISBN: 9780486206028

More than 1,000 ripostes, paradoxes, wisecracks: "Work is the curse of the drinking classes," "I can resist everything except temptation," etc.

Great Presidential Wit

Great Presidential Wit
Author: Robert J. Dole
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2001
Genre: Presidents
ISBN: 0743203925

The former senator and presidential candidate collects bipartisan presidential humor from famous, and not-so-famous, chief executives, from Washington to Clinton.

The Wit and Humour of Political Science

The Wit and Humour of Political Science
Author: Lee Sigelman
Publisher: ECPR Press
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2010-10-01
Genre: Humor
ISBN: 1907301100

The Wit and Humour of Political Science is the serendipitous product of two senior scholars working across the world from one another and who independently collected funny and satirical articles on political science over the years with the intent of someday publishing them for a wider audience. The lead editors— Kenneth Newton (Professor Emeritus, University of Southampton, Visiting Professor, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin, and Hertie School of Governance, Berlin) and the late Lee Sigelman (Columbian School of Arts and Sciences, Distinguished Professor of Political Science, George Washington University) — learned by chance of each other's projects. Newton and Sigelman joined forces with Kenneth Meier (Charles H. Gregory Chair in Liberal Arts and Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Texas A&M University) and Bernard Grofman (Jack W. Peltason (Bren Foundation) Endowed Chair in the Department of Political Science, University of California, Irvine) to publish this collection under the joint imprint of APSA and ECPR. The collection includes previously published essays as well as original pieces never formally published. From the editors: This volume collects what in our opinions are the wittiest and funniest pieces about political science and political scientists. We are confident that even a small investment of the reader's time will be sufficient to disprove Baker's slur on our discipline. Like all good humour, much of the work we have chosen for inclusion has a serious point. It helps scholars keep an open and skeptical mind, it picks out our weak points in theory and methods, points out how research may be going wrong, and it pricks the balloon of bombast, pretentiousness, and jargon. And, not only that, it's fun... Its contents make essential reading for all political scientists, even the most senior, but it may be enjoyed by younger scholars, especially those without tenure (or worse yet, without a job), by other social scientists, and even— gasp—by readers unaffiliated with any academic discipline.

The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain

The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain
Author: Mark Twain
Publisher: Courier Corporation
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2013-01-01
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 048648923X

"Familiarity breeds contempt — and children." "When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear." "Heaven for climate. Hell for company." This attractive paperback gift edition of the renowned American humorist's epigrams and witticisms features hundreds of quips on life, love, history, culture, travel, and other topics from his fiction, essays, letters, and autobiography.

Elements of Wit

Elements of Wit
Author: Benjamin Errett
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2014-10-07
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0698153863

Got wit? We’ve all been in that situation where we need to say something clever, but innocuous; smart enough to show some intelligence, without showing off; something funny, but not a joke. What we need in that moment is wit—that sparkling combination of charm, humor, confidence, and most of all, the right words at the right time. Elements of Wit is an engaging book that brings together the greatest wits of our time, and previous ones from Oscar Wilde to Nora Ephron, Winston Churchill to Christopher Hitchens, Mae West to Louis CK, and many in between. With chapters covering the essential ingredients of wit, this primer sheds light on how anyone—introverts, extroverts, wallflowers, and bon vivants—can find the right zinger, quip, parry, or retort…or at least be a little bit more interesting.

Satire as the Comic Public Sphere

Satire as the Comic Public Sphere
Author: James E. Caron
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 357
Release: 2021-04-19
Genre: Humor
ISBN: 0271090332

Stephen Colbert, Samantha Bee, John Oliver, and Jimmy Kimmel—these comedians are household names whose satirical takes on politics, the news, and current events receive some of the highest ratings on television. In this book, James E. Caron examines these and other satirists through the lenses of humor studies, cultural theory, and rhetorical and social philosophy, arriving at a new definition of the comic art form. Tracing the history of modern satire from its roots in the Enlightenment values of rational debate, evidence, facts, accountability, and transparency, Caron identifies a new genre: “truthiness satire.” He shows how satirists such as Colbert, Bee, Oliver, and Kimmel—along with writers like Charles Pierce and Jack Shafer—rely on shared values and on the postmodern aesthetics of irony and affect to foster engagement within the comic public sphere that satire creates. Using case studies of bits, parodies, and routines, Caron reveals a remarkable process: when evidence-based news reporting collides with a discursive space asserting alternative facts, the satiric laughter that erupts can move the audience toward reflection and possibly even action as the body politic in the public sphere. With rigor, humor, and insight, Caron shows that truthiness satire pushes back against fake news and biased reporting and that the satirist today is at heart a citizen, albeit a seemingly silly one. This book will appeal to anyone interested in and concerned about public discourse in the current era, especially researchers in media studies, communication studies, political science, and literary and cultural studies.

Great British Wit

Great British Wit
Author: Rosemarie Jarski
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 466
Release: 2005
Genre: English wit and humor
ISBN: 0091906318

Arranged thematically--from Class and Character, Sex and Snobbery, to the Foreigner's Eye View--here is the definitive collection of the British nation's funniest quotations. Among the many great and good who dazzle us with their wit are Martin Amis, Jane Austen, Billy Connolly, Quentin Crisp, Roald Dahl, John Lennon, Queen Victoria, and Oscar Wilde.