On Laughter and Its Community Functions in Social Life and Art. Considerations From an Anthropological and Pedagogical Perspective

Abstract

The aim of the study which adopts an anthropological and pedagogical perspective is to reflect on the community functions of art that uses comedy eliciting laughter. The subject of interest is therefore comedy-related laughter perceived as a socio-cultural phenomenon. The article examines various forms of comedy that cause laugher, and discusses their conditions and transformations. Selected examples from the field of art (literature, theater, film, visual arts) are used for exemplification. The considerations presented in the text arose from the questions about the reasons for the marginal interest in comedy and laughter, including in its community functions, in the theory of aesthetic education and in the contemporary discourse of art pedagogy.

Keywords

• art
• community
• comedy
• laughter
• education