May be of interest to comic scholars...
Session Organizers: Terri Moreau (Royal Holloway, University of London) and Carole Enahoro (University College London)
Session abstract:
The anthropologist Mary Douglas, in considering the force of humor, theorized that joking allows for “something formal [to be] attacked by something informal, something organized and controlled by something vital, energetic.” In this spirit, this session aims to interrogate humor’s significance, masked by its use of entertainment as distraction. There are a number of overriding reasons to consider humor as a critical, appropriate, and relevant phenomenon that can inform research into theories of space and power: its constant modification of power relations through linguistic play; its ability to disrupt dominant discourse and consequently delegitimize authority; its transmission of subversive information; its unpredictable effects on social networks; and its identification of sites of resistive practices. Humor can lend agency and appropriate authority, serving a ‘non-threatening’ function to afford release and/or critique in environments of tension. The goal of the session is to bring together geographers who engage with humorous geographies to spark new discussions on the value of humor in its relationship to power, symbolic power and/or microspaces of power. We welcome papers on topics such as, but not limited to:
• Resistance and dissent; domination and (manufactured?) consent
• Laughter, unlaughter and ambivalence
• Joking and the corrosion of authority
• Lies and deception
• The attack of the informal on the formal
• Spaces of inclusion and exclusion
• Socio-political division of the city through aggressive joking
• Geopolitical mobilization through comedy and (re)productions of the ‘other’
• Laughing about the past, coping with the present, and envisioning the future
Interested participants are invited to send an abstract, maximum 250 words, or questions to Terri Moreau ([log in to unmask]) and Carole Enahoro ([log in to unmask]) by August 31st, 2011.
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