Acknowledgments

A few minutes after I first presented the analytical model called Discourse Theory of Humor (whose application is one of the main topics of this book) during the 31st Conference of the International Society for Humor Studies in Austin, Texas, Salvatore Attardo launched the initial idea of a book dedicated to it, including different case studies demonstrating its scope and potential. Chapter 2 is, in fact, an elaborate version of that plenary talk in Austin. I could not but work on his idea about the book and I am grateful for his support and warm feelings not only back then but ever since 2002, when we first met in another such conference in Bertinoro, Italy.

A significant part of this book was written in very difficult circumstances due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which kept us all apart from our loved ones and away from our normal activities. Un/like many people, working hard was one of the ways I had to keep me going. Simultaneously, the TRACE project (“Tracing racism in anti-racist discourse: A critical approach to European public speech on the migrant and refugee crisis”; University of Patras, Greece, 2019–2023) and the “Study of Art in Covid-19 Humor” project (Jagiellonian University, Poland, 2022) kept me busy (and sane) and together with friends and colleagues. Chapters 4 and 6 respectively include parts of the work I did for these projects.

I would like to thank dear friends and colleagues who were more or less directly involved in the writing of this book, whether they remember it or not: Argiris Archakis, Dorota Brzozowska, Władysław Chłopicki, Jan Chovanec, Anna Piata, Béatrice Priego-Valverde, and Vasia Tsami. I am grateful also to Lida Anagnostaki, Marianthi Georgalidou, Vicky Manteli, Panos Pantidos, and Anastasia Stamou, who always lend a hand and an ear.

The Chapters of this book have benefited from precious feedback offered by two anonymous reviewers and by audiences in different places such as Alicante, Spain; Austin and Commerce, Texas, USA; Belgrade, Serbia; Bertinoro, Italy; Brno, Czechia; Brussels, Belgium; Bucharest, Romania; Krakow, Poland; Malta; Tartu, Estonia; Athens, Ioannina, and Thessaloniki, Greece – and, of course, audiences in the online sphere we inhabited for several months.

Last but not least, special thanks go to my family for always being there, and especially my sister Alki for also being a doi-expert! Argiris Archakis deserves a second mention here for everything we have been through together: after more than 20 years, I still cannot find enough words to thank him.