What is laughter? The selected essays in this volume explore the conditions governing the production and survival of laughter. The visual arts, including both painting and film, and the different linguistic and literary traditions prove highly fruitful areas of investigation.

What is laughter - physiologically, psychologically, metaphysically, linguistically, artistically? And what about its politics and ideology? Is laughter culture-specific? Does it travel? These questions were addressed in two colloquia organized by TRIO (Translation Research in Oxford) at St Hugh's College, Oxford, in 2001-2. The selected essays in this volume explore the conditions governing the production and survival of laughter. The visual arts, including both painting and film, and the different linguistic and literary traditions prove highly fruitful areas of investigation. The stage, with its innately interactive character, poses particularly interesting questions in the field of translation. Speakers at the colloquia represented a wide spread of countries and disciplines and included Susan Bassnett, Laurent Bazin, Anthea Bell, Sarah Blakemore, Ranjit Bolt, Peter Bush, Ted Cohen, Jean-Michel Duprars, Susan Greenfield, Terry Hale, Hugh Haughton, Guy Leclercq, Marie-Claire Pasquier, Adam Phillips, Gerard Toulouse and Aline Schulman.