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Humoristische Darstellungsstrategien in den Jüdischen Kulturbildern von Armin Schnitzer

Abstract

This paper deals with the humoristic strategies in the Jüdische Kulturbilder (1904), a memoir with ethnographic traces of the Hungarian Rabbi Armin Schnitzer (1838-1914). A brief introduction to his biography, the sociocultural context and some basic terms of humor research, is followed by the analysis of the forms and functions of comic effects in the text, with a special emphasis on the satirical expressions of social criticism, the role of humor in coping with conflicts of everyday life, and the self-image of the author as a traditional and modern rabbi in the age of emancipation and assimilation.