CFP: Snickering Scholars: Humour and the Humanities Graduate Student Conference

[Robin C. Whittaker]

Hi All,

I'm forwarding this CFP from a colleague at York U. They've extended 
their deadline to *Feb 15* and have asked that I emphasize their 
interest in topics related to drama/theatre/performance. Please circulate.

Cheers,
Robin.

Robin C. Whittaker, PhD
Assistant Professor, Drama
Department of English
St. Thomas University
Fredericton, NB E3B 5G3
rwhit at stu.ca



  Snickering Scholars: Humour and the Humanities

*Graduate Student Conference*

*Friday, March 16-Saturday, March 17, 2012*

*Graduate Program in Humanities, York University, Toronto, Ontario*

The discipline of the humanities has included from its beginnings a 
large helping of humour, and major scholars and critics from Ancient 
times onwards, within the Western tradition and outside of it, have 
taken full advantage of its capacity to engage, persuade, and amuse 
audiences.  Yet humour is also often ignored, and occasionally 
denigrated, as a rhetorical and educational technique in much of the 
scholarly world.  This conference is dedicated to bringing to light and 
exploring where, how, and to what effect humour is used in and around 
the humanities, both in primary texts and performances and in the works 
that comment on and elucidate them.  We invite submissions from graduate 
students working in the Humanities, as well as Interdisciplinary 
Studies, English, History, Philosophy, Theatre Studies, Comparative 
Literature, Education, Anthropology, Classics, Fine Arts, Psychology, 
Linguistics, Queer and Gender Studies, Art History, and other fields.

*Possible panel and paper topics include but are not limited to:*

1) */Humour and the human condition/.*  How does humour's “universal” 
character relate to the projects of the humanities? Does humour itself 
change through the centuries and millennia and across (or between) 
linguistic, ethnic, national, and cultural borders, or only our 
attitudes and approaches to it? What about humour in animals or in 
imagined non-human beings?  Is humour as “human” a feature as it is 
often claimed to be?

2) */Humour and aesthetics/**. * Humour is a major element of numerous 
artworks, but only rarely touched upon in “serious” discussions of 
aesthetics.  Does it have a place in theories of art?  If so, what sort 
of place?  How do mockery, parody, and farce relate or correspond to 
beauty, craftsmanship, and art in the works in which they appear?  Is 
irony any different?  What about other kinds of humour?

3) */Anti-humorists/. * What does humour damage or destroy?  Do those 
who advocate the dismissal of humour from “serious” academic discussion 
have a point?  Are there “objective” objections to humour, or is it only 
ever an issue of style or taste?  Who benefits from the presence or 
absence of humour in the humanities?

4) */Humour, performance, and spontaneity/**. * Humour and laughter are 
often associated with spontaneity, perhaps one of the chief reasons that 
they are is often deemed unsuitable for serious, planned discussion. 
  Yet some of the most widespread and successful (and ostensibly 
spontaneous) humour is minutely planned, rehearsed, and scripted - as, 
for example, in vaudeville, stand-up comics, film, radio, etc.  What is 
the relation of spontaneity and performance to humour and to the social, 
academic, and political interactions in which it appears?


5) */Humour and health/. * Humour is often connected with mental and/or 
physical well-being: it is used as a barometer to evaluate health and 
state of mind, and we are deeply disconcerted by either a complete 
absence or a notable excess of humour.  What are our assumptions about 
how humour relates to well-being?  What is the range of “allowable” 
variation in humour, and where is the border between “healthy” and 
“unhealthy” laughter?  What changes do we expect in humour when a 
person’s physical or mental state is permanently altered?

6) */Humour in academic articles, book reviews, textbooks, and other 
scholarly materials/. *What sorts of humour appear in scholarly work, 
and who writes it?  With what goals?  What can be learned about academia 
and the humanities through humour that cannot be learned any other way, 
and what can be accomplished that would otherwise be left undone?  Is 
humour used in the same ways and for the same purposes by the parvenus 
and the triumphantly tenured, the cultural theorists and the classical 
philologists?   How is the humour of the humanities different from that 
of other fields?

7) */Humour as a vehicle of critique/. *Voltaire’s /Candide/ is only one 
of the many attempts to use humour to create a sustained argument for or 
against a philosophy, approach, or academic school.  What are the 
characteristics and techniques of this kind of humour?  Does it vary by 
discipline or region or over time?  What has caused it to come into or 
fall out of favour?

*Other possible paper topics include:*

-Multicultural and multiethnic humour in the humanities

-Translation and humour, cross-cultural exchanges of humour

-Jokes as self-positioning

-Censorship and humour

-Linguistics/language and humour

-Knowledge/epistemologies of the funny

*Creative submissions*, in the form of text, visual art, or performance 
will also be considered.  All participants will be invited to join the 
organizers at a comedy event in Toronto on the evening of the 17^th .

*Keynote speakers:*

1)  Prof. David McGimpsey, Creative Writing, Concordia University, Montreal

2)  TBA

*The Proposals Committee invites submissions of 200-300 word abstracts 
to humourandthehumanities at gmail.com 
<mailto:humourandthehumanities at gmail.com> by Jan. 15, 2011.  Submissions 
in English and French are welcome. Abstracts may be in Word or RTF 
format and should include, along with the abstract, a title, the 
author’s name, affiliation, email address, and a short biographical 
statement (max 50 words).  Proposals for panels will also be considered: 
the proposal should include a tentative title, short description, and 
list of proposed participants and the titles of their submissions.  
Notification of acceptance or rejection by the Committee will be 
provided by Feb. 5, 2012.*







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