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We have a couple of spaces left in the Humor sessions. Please respond by Monday 12 September 2011. Below are the abstracts for the sessions. CFP AAG New York, 24-28 Feb, 2012 Spaces of Humor Session Organizers: Terri Moreau (Royal Holloway, University of London) and Carole Enahoro (University College London) Sponsored by the: Cultural Geography Specialty Group Session abstract: While social science has engaged with the importance of analyzing discourse and communication, it has typically focused on information, conversation exchange and, latterly, stories. Recently, geography has come to appreciate the provocative power of humor that in some ways shares similar agency but, it can be argued, is charged with more complex mechanisms and possesses more chaotic dynamics. Humor also serves a number of functions – social cohesion or rupture, the cementing of relationships, dissemination of covert information, persuasion through the distraction of entertainment, and the simultaneous challenge and reinforcement of the status quo, for example. The goal of the session is to bring together geographers who are interested in the exploration of humor in all its forms – laughter, comedy, affect, joking relationships, genres such as satire, irony, parody – in order to explore its impact on real or imagined spaces. The themes, listed in bullet form for brevity but understood more as continua rather than singular phenomena, might include but are not limited to: • The topology, networks or analysis of humor • Subversion, resistance, microspaces of power • Humor as release: apathy, passivity, coping and acceptance • Hegemony, spaces of power • Joking relationships, cultural cohesion • Provocateurs and stereotypes • Probing taboos and unpacking norms • Translation across boundaries • Humor, passage and the built environment • Interactions between landscape and humor Humor as a Political Resource Session Organizers: Terri Moreau (Royal Holloway, University of London) and Carole Enahoro (University College London) Sponsored by the: Political Geography Specialty Group 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 12 September 2011.