Prisca Spagnol

In the chapter “Foreigners are Funny – the Ethicity and Ethnicity of Humor” in his book “On Humor“, Simon Critchley talks about how in ethnic… Read More »Prisca Spagnol – Italian “Foreigners” in Italy

In the journal article “Horror and Humor”, Noël Carroll says that one of the major parts of humor resides in incongruities: she argues that “the… Read More »Prisca Spagnol – Vampires in What We Do in The Shadows

In his “A Brief Introduction to the Study of Awkwardness”, Adam Kotsko talks about how awkwardness is inescapable, pervasive and follows us everywhere: we encounter… Read More »Prisca Spagnol – Awkwardness in Shrek 2

The first example that comes to my mind when I read the word camp is the horror hostess Elvira, the character played by Cassandra Peterson, which gained… Read More »Prisca Spagnol – Camp and Elvira: Mistress of the Dark

In his work “Rabelais and His World” (1965) Mikhail Bakhtin reflects on the concepts of carnival and grotesque realism. Regarding the grotesque body, he says that… Read More »Prisca Spagnol – Bakhtin, zombies and vampires

In her essay on jokes, Mary Douglas makes a comparison between Bergson’s and Freud’s theses on jokes and laughter, saying that for Bergson “the essence… Read More »Prisca Spagnol – Bergson and “The Truman Show”: something mechanical encrusted on the living

In the first couple pages of the introduction of his book “Machine age-comedy“, Michael North talks about Benjamin and how he is “fascinated by the… Read More »Prisca Spagnol – Chaplin, Totò and machinelike movements

In her “Cinema Year Zero: Tik Tok and the Grammar of Silent Film” article, Caroline Golum enlightens us on how Tik Tok, the social media… Read More »Prisca Spagnol – Tik Tok and Early Cinema