I am professor emeritus of English at Long Island University (USA). My interest is drawn toward studying how humor gets “inside” religions, i.e. what religious contexts resist humor, and what religions and religious cultures tolerate or even embrace humor and why. I have co-authored quantitative humor appreciation studies in Humor: International Journal of Humor Research and in the European Journal of Humor Research, I have written articles on free expression and unfettered humor in Free Inquiry and The Chronicle of Higher Education, and I have just published a book titled Christianity and the Triumph of Humor: From Dante to David Javerbaum (Routledge).
Currently, I am editing a book on humor in the Muslim world, together with Lina Molotokos-Liederman.