I det här arbetet studeras Charlie Chaplins berättartekniker, både sagoberättande, visuellt och audiellt i ett försök att komma fram till huruvida de berättartekniker som Chaplin använde sig av fortfarande kan fungera i komiska produktioner idag. Vi kommer i texten titta närmare på hur han använde kameran både när han filmade och klippte, hur han strukturerade upp sina ljudkompositioner, hur han använde kontraster, hur han skrev sina berättelser för att antalet skämt skulle bli just rätt, samt hur han förde sig både framför och bakom kameran för att sedan applicera detta på en kortfilm i vårt skapande. / In this essay we will be looking into the teqniques which Charlie Chaplin used to tell his stories, both when it comes to plot, visual and auditory storytelling, in an attempt to find out if these techniques still would work in a comic film production today. We will take a closer look at how he used the camera while filming and cutting, how he structured his stories to allow for the optimal amount of slapstick gags, how he would make use of different contrasts, how he structured his sound compositions and finally how he would act both in front and behind the camera so we then can apply this on a short film of our making.

論文名稱：非典型原住民活力：傑偌•維森諾《熱線療者》中的 後印地安、喜劇與移動力 指導教授：梁一萍 教授 研究生：尤吟文 論文提要內容： 傑偌•維森諾（Gerald Vizenor）認為所謂的「印地安」（indian）是一個沒有指涉目標的空集合（absence without reference），而「原住民」（native）才是指這個文化所代表的真正的意涵。相較於其他原住民作家的作品，維森諾的寫作方式可說是獨樹一幟。在原住民文學中，許多的主題不外乎是尋找身分認同（identity）的過程、強調人與自然之間的和諧關係、表現白人社會與原住民文化之間的隔閡等等。這種思鄉式（nostalgia）的描寫方式對於維森諾來說不只是種老掉牙的（stereotypical）表現方式，更是主流文學（literature of dominance）加諸在原住民文化上的表現方式（manifest manners）。為了與主流文學抗衡，維森諾以搗蛋鬼論述（trickster discourse）的寫作技巧來顛覆原住民文學的傳統，以天馬行空的想像力及奇異怪誕的內容來表現另類的原住民作品。 《熱線療者》是維森諾在1997年的作品，書中的主人翁－－差不多部朗（Almost Browne）是本書中的搗蛋鬼，他穿越時空的限制，帶給讀者一個又一個的故事，這些故事不具有教導意義，而是表現出想像力的無限。差不多部朗曾經在許多維森諾的小說故事中呈現，在《熱線療者》一書中，他與他的姪子，也就是小說的敘述者，以插訶打諢、嘻笑怒罵的方式與政治界和學術界有了第一線接觸，他們也回到過去，目睹了原住民傳說的起源。每個小故事，不管時間地點為何，差不多部朗和他的姪子總是在場。這些故事也搭著原住民第一列火車－－納那波佐快車（Naanabozho Express），隨著列車的移動傳出去。 本文的第一章為總論，簡述維森諾生平、《熱線療者》的故事情節與維森諾自成一格的批評理論。為了表現出原住民文化以及生活的生命力、多樣性和複雜性，維森諾提出所謂的「後印地安」的觀念，指出「印地安」是一種虛擬的再現（simulated representation），只有具有想像力和生命力的「後印地安」才是真正的存在（presence），這也是第二章所討論的部分。第三章則是從喜劇出發，檢討原住民文學的悲劇犧牲性（tragic victimry）實為主流文學的表現方式，只有透過全喜劇論述（comic holotrope）才能真正了解原住民文學。第四章則聚焦於移動力（motion），直指原住民文學的不可限制性，唯有透過對於移動力的了解，原住民文學才能表現出其生命力及想像力，就像差不多部朗或是納那波佐列車一樣，永遠在宇宙間移動（always in motion）。第五章為結論，《熱線療者》是維森諾寫的最後一本有關差不多部朗的小說，在這本小說中，維森諾以另類的筆調及呈現方式將原住民文學帶到一個充滿創造力的世界，經由他的喜劇效果，《熱線療者》提供了另一個檢視原住民文學的角度（alternative, alter-native）。 / Indian, as Gerald Vizenor points out, is the absence of natives without reference to real native cultures while native is the presence of the native survivance. In the field of Native American Literature, the most common themes are the quest for identity, the harmony between nature and people and the conflict between native and white cultures. The nostalgic representation of natives depicted in these common themes, for Vizenor, is not only a stereotypical clich□ but also the manifest manners imposed on Native American Literature by the literature of dominance. In order to resist the burden imposed on Native American Literature, Vizenor, with his unique writing style, applies trickster discourse to subvert the stereotypes brought forth by the literature of dominance. With creativity and imagination, Vizenor presents alternative aspects for Native American Literature. Fascinated by the extraordinary writing style and narrative strategy, I find that the novel, Hotline Healers, illustrates Vizenor’s comprehensive viewpoints on Native American literature. Hotline Healers is Vizenor’s most recent novel which was published in 1997. In the novel, Almost Browne is a protagonist trickster who travels beyond the spatial and temporal limitations. The stories he tells with his travels are not intended to provide lessons; on the contrary, they are the true representation of native imagination. Almost Browne and his cousin, the narrator in the novel, take the first Native train, the Naanabozho Express, to give lectures in several occasions and result in several funny and hilarious encounters with politicians as well as academia. They also return to the past and witness the origins of the native folklores. Almost Browne and his cousin are omnipresent in the stories. With the moving of the Naanabozho Express, more and more stories disseminate native imagination and creativity. There are five chapters in my thesis. The first chapter, “Introduction,” summarizes the life and works of Gerald Vizenor, gives a plot summary of Hotline Healers, and introduces Vizenor’s critical conceptions on Native American Literature. In Chapter Two, I illustrate Vizenor’s view on postindian. Postindian, as Vizenor indicates, absolves the burden of stereotypical indian representations. With the idea of postindian, Vizenor focuses on the presence of natives as well as native vitality and imagination and thus subverts the culturalist stereotypical portraita of indian which is the simulated representation without reference. In Chapter Three, I concentrate on the comic effect employed by Vizenor in Hotline Healers. Comic holotrope is one of Vizenor’s writing techniques which is different from the themes of tragic victimry found in most Native American literary works. Comic holotrope presents the vitality of native culture while tragic victimry burdens Native American Literature with “manifest manners.” In Chapter Four, I explore the concept of motion in the novel. The idea of motion is not only the demonstration of the bounderlessness of Native American literary imaginatinos but also the representation of the transformative native wisdom. In the fifth chapter, I conclude that the novel, being Vizenor’s latest novel on Almost Browne, incorporates his alternative vision of tribal survivance and critical concepts of postindian, comic holotrope, and motion to elevate Native American Literature to a creative and imaginative world. The novel provides readers with an alternative point of view toward Native American Literature.

John Marston’s literary legacy has inevitably existed in the larger-than-life shadows of his great contemporaries William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. In the last two centuries, his works were hardly taken on their own terms but were perceived instead in overt or implicit comparison to Shakespeare’s or Jonson’s. As a result, Marston’s plays acquired the lasting but unfair image of haphazard concoctions whose cheap sensationalism and personal satire often got them in trouble with the authorities. This was the case until recently, especially with Marston’s comic drama. Following revisionist trends, this study sets out to restore some perspective: it offers a fresh reading of Marston’s comic plays and collaborations—Antonio and Mellida, What You Will, Jack Drum’s Entertainment, The Dutch Courtesan, The Malcontent, Parasitaster, Eastward Ho, and Histrio-Mastix—by pursuing a more nuanced contextualization with regard to religious context and archival evidence. The first central contention here is that instead of undermining political and religious authority, Marston’s comic drama can demonstrate consistent conformist and conservative affinities, which imply a seriously considered agenda. This study’s second main point is that the perceived failures of Marston’s comic plays—such as tragic elements, basic characterization, and sudden final reversals—can be plausibly read as deliberate effects, designed with this agenda in mind. The significance of this analysis lies in its interpretation of Marston’s comedies from the angle of religious and political conformism, which argues for an alternative identity for this playwright. The discussion opens with a presentation of Marston’s early satirical books as texts informed by a moderate Church of England Protestantism, yet coinciding at times with some of Calvin’s writings, and by a distrust of the individualistic tendencies of the English Presbyterian movement as well as the perceived literal ritualism of the old Catholic faith. On this basis, it then proceeds to reveal an identical philosophy behind Marston’s comic plays and collaborations. Antonio and Mellida and What You Will are interpreted to dramatize the human soul’s dependence on God’s favourable grace; Jack Drum’s Entertainment and The Dutch Courtesan to insist on the acknowledgement of God in romantic desire; The Malcontent and Parasitaster to present the dangers of the political immorality; and Eastward Ho and Histrio-Mastix to argue for the necessity of edifying occupations for the wayward human will. In its conclusion, this study further highlights Marston’s bias for political and religious individual obedience to established hierarchies and his suspicion of the early modern forces of change. The conformist identity that emerges from the present discussion is consistently supported by the archival evidence surviving from the playwright’s life. Thus, Marston’s comic drama can be interpreted as the result of carefully considered and skilfully implemented political and religious ideas that have been neglected so far.

This thesis is a socio-cultural study of the development of female stand-up comedy in the first decade of the twenty-first century within a multi-racial and multi-cultural Britain. It also engages with the theory and practice of performance and asks the question: ‘In what ways can it be said that female stand-up comics perform the comic side of bodily abjection?’ This question is applied to three groups of female case-studies which include: those who came into stand-up comedy in the 1980s; second-generation transnationals who became established at the end of the twentieth century; and twenty-first century newcomers to stand-up comedy. This third group also includes the author of this thesis who uses her own embodied experience as research, and Lynne Parker whose Funny Women organization was set up in 2002 to facilitate female entry into stand-up comedy. Alongside these three groups the subject of females as audience of female stand-up comedy is also explored. The issue of bodily abjection is explored in relation to seminal works on abjection by Julia Kristeva (1982) and Mary Douglas (1966) and regarding theories of the grotesque as posited by Mikhail Bakhtin (1984) and Mary Russo (1995). These texts are used in this thesis to argue that abjection is a significant aspect of both the context and content of contemporary female stand-up comedy and that the orifices, surfaces and processes of the body are still pertinent to twenty-first century female stand-up comedy.

Uppsatsens syfte är att undersöka hur stand up - komedi beskrivs, görs och förstås ur kvinnliga komikers perspektiv. Utifrån kulturantropologiska, kommunikationsteoretiska och genusteoretiska perspektiv söker uppsatsen ta reda på vad som kommuniceras med ett stand up- framträdande, om tankar kring hur det är att utöva stand up som kvinna och om det finns en egen ”kvinnlig humor”.

This study examines British television situation comedy over the last fifteen years and analyses the genre as part of a discourse about the nature of modernity. In this period globalisation, technology and the rapid reassessment of formerly established social structures have created new modes of everyday existence that represent significant changes to people’s lives. The thesis argues that contemporary sitcoms address these shifts in social understanding and anxieties about contemporary British life. A wide range of texts are discussed, four in particular detail; Peep Show, Love Soup, Saxondale and Home Time; which explicitly try to form a dialogue with their audience about living in modernity. The thesis largely takes a methodological approach from Television Studies, referencing scholars from the discipline, in particular John Ellis’s concepts of “working through” and employing a significant amount of textual analysis. Chapter two looks at the context of television in this changing world and chapter three analyses how sitcom as a genre has redefined its forms. Chapter four identifies the importance of ‘tone’ in comedy and analyses how modernity demands new modes of address for comedy to meet the expectations of its audience. The study demonstrates how texts balance new approaches with continuities drawn from the existing sitcom tradition. In order to interrogate the nature of social change and its effects, chapter one engages with the work of a number of social theorists. In particular it analyses the recent writings of Richard Sennett and Zygmunt Bauman, who identify contemporary life as “the culture of the new capitalism” and “liquid modernity” respectively. They consider how such change might affect how individuals feel about themselves and their place in society. Throughout, the thesis demonstrates how this work might be applied to the study of sitcom and combines social theory with a detailed analysis of this television form in transformation, arguing that sitcom remains a resonant site for audiences to participate in a productive discourse about how we live today.

This thesis serves to classify Black Humor as a philosophy, which holds that the world is meaningless and absurd, and as a literary technique. Historical origins are discussed and the idea is related to a reflection of the middle-class syndrome of twentieth century man. Close philosophical and literary relatives are presented and a pure work isn't defined. Black Humor literary characteristics are described in terms of style, theme, plot, setting, chronology, and characteristic ending. Black Humor characters are classified as "non-heroes" divided into four categories. Prevalent use and treatment of traditional forbidden subjects of sex, defecation, money, violence, emotionlessness, religion, death, and "illogical" logic are stressed. In summary, Cat's Cradle is examined in light of the Black Humor characteristics described and found to be other than a pure Black Humor work.

This paper focuses on the translation of audiovisual humour. I have analysed Petr Palouš's translation of Monty Python's Flying Circus. The translator of audiovisual humour has to deal with the same issues and problems as the translator of literature, that is he has to find equivalents to word plays, idioms, register and so on, but at the same time he also has to comply with the restrictions of audiovisual medium. I have identified the most common translation problems when translating humour and audiovisual texts and possible strategies of their translation into the target language, and then analysed how Palouš dealt with these cruces translatorum when translating the Flying Circus.

anglicky: Title of the thesis: Molière in modern Czech theatre Keywords: Molière, preciousness, classicism, baroque, comedy, commedia dell'arte, comedy-ballet. Abstract: The thesis treats the works of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin also known as Molière and their legacy in modern Czech theatre. It characterizes French society of the seventeenth century and the main features of contemporary philosophical and artistic styles, focusing on the dramatic creation of classicism. It also summarizes the life of Molière and his work, subdividing it according to generic, formal and thematic criteria. Within this frame, it gives a detailed analysis of the most important plays, representing the individual categories. It also studies the modern Czech theatrical stage. Focusing on the historical context, it explores the development of the stage from the end of the Second World War until nowadays. It gives a complex outline of Molière's plays presented during the different periods, evaluating the influence of cultural and historical context on the particular interpretation. This evaluation is based on the information presented in contemporary press and promotional materials of the given theatres and thus examines Molière's plays performed on Czech theatre stages in the present. On the basis of a questionnaire...

A retired actress and her quirky family trap four guests in elaborately woven games in Noel Coward’s Hay Fever. Within the concept of “playing house,” the glamour of Coward’s work lives on through scenery, costumes, and lighting, while his quirkier side is highlighted in hopes of making his Comedy of Manners accessible to a new audience.