Laughing in Space: Robert Heinlein's 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress' and Towards a New Humor Framewor

Humor's effect on the audience's relationship to the object, or speaker, of humor has often been neglected, and creating a framework by which scholars can examine how humor works to alter the relationship between audience and other fills this gap. Additionally, the definition of science fiction relies on the existence of a cognitively estranging other and under this definition, humor has not been thoroughly studied. This thesis attempts to explain how humor affects audiences cognitively, utilizing Hegel's theory of self and other, and then applies this theoretical explanation to the field of science fiction and examines its effects.