Entremets: Turning Bakhtin upside down

Abstract

Usually an entremets is a pleasant delight. This time it is serious. It serves the historiography of laughter in order to discuss some theoretical problems underlying this research. Although it would be too rash to declare that no existing theory can do justice to the great variety of experiences of laughter in the past, there nevertheless is still a great divide between the theoretical approach to laughter, as developed in recent research in other social sciences, and the relatively few but steadily growing number of historical studies on the subject which generally reject modern theories of laughter. This entremets does not attempt to build any theory to bridge that gap, but gives some clues as to the direction in which future historical research on laughter could look to find firmer ground. On the other hand, these few comments may perhaps inspire other social scientists to take historical research on the comic more seriously.