Religião e humor na contemporaneidade: representações da doutrina espírita e construção de identidades no campo religioso

Abstract

This research seeks to comprehend how laughter (under humorous genre) and religion are connected in the contemporary. Specially, we discuss about Spiritism Doctrine and their audiovisual representations shared on YouTube, in the Canal Amigos da Luz , created in 2015 by Companhia Amigos da Luz. As well, we analyze the play Morrendo e Aprendendo , written by Companhia Amigos da Luz, on tour since 2007. In addition, we can observe that through media devices and theatrical performances, humor has been a possibility for reflection and to construction for representations about religiousness and death. We start from literature review about the relationship between laughter and death, based on Vladimir Propp, Peter Berger, Henri Bergson, and George Minois. Then, we observe the uses and the social functions of social communication and of theatre to Spiritism, in order to comprehend the construction of doctrine representation and how the subjects are morally represented in the doctrine under the humorous genre. To analyze the audiovisual product and the play, we ask how each character reacts, and what is the central idea, and the joke or irony, as proposed by Patrick Charaudeau for the study of language and the discourse in the narrative.