The fourteen chapters in this anthology feature original, in-depth analyses of contemporary German-language literary texts, films, political cartoons, cabaret, and other types of performance. The artworks display a wide spectrum of humor modes, such as irony, satire, the grotesque, Jewish humor, and slapstick, as responses to unification with the accompanying euphoria, but also alienation and dislocation. Kerstin Hensel's L rchenau, Christoph Hein's Landnahme, and vignette collections by Jakob Hein (Antrag auf st ndige Ausreise und andere Mythen der DDR) and Wladimir Kaminer (Es gab keinen Sex im Sozialismus) are interpreted as examples of the grotesque. The popular films Lola rennt, Sonnenallee, Herr Lehmann, NVA, Alles auf Zucker!, and Mein F hrer Die wirklich wahrste Wahrheit ber Adolf Hitler are reexamined through the lens of traditional and more recent humor or comic book theories.