Announcements

If you have a CFP you would like to publicize, please email Tracy Wuster at wustert@gmail.com or post in a comment to this page.

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AMERICAN HUMOR STUDIES ASSOCIATION

Call for Abstracts for ALA 2020

Panel 1:

The American Humor Studies Association seeks abstracts for a session titled “Take my husband … please: Humor and the Home” for the American Literature Association annual conference in San Diego, Calif., May 21-24, 2020.

AHSA welcomes submissions that explore literary, visual, and performative examples of how American humor has been deployed to critique, analyze, and respond to life in the private sphere: from the physical home, to family life, to sexuality. Abstracts may propose analyses of specific texts and images, from any time frame or medium, including biography, political cartoons, social media, films, plays, television, and stand-up comedy.

Please email a brief CV and 300-word abstract (and please indicate any audio/visual needs) by December 16, 2019 to Teresa Prados-Torreira (tprados-torreira@colum.edu) using “Humor and the Home” as the subject line. All panelists will need to be current members of AHS

Panel 2:

The American Humor Studies Association seeks abstracts for an Open-Topic session for the American Literature Association annual conference in San Diego, May 21-24, 2020.

AHSA encourages submissions on any topic related to American humor for this session.

Please email a brief CV and 300-word abstract (and please indicate any audio/visual needs) by December 16, 2019 to Teresa Prados-Torreira (tprados-torreira@colum.edu) using “Open Topic Panel” as the subject line. All panelists will need to be current members of AHSA.

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Comedy/Humor

Call for Participants

Sponsored by:

American Humor Studies Association

The Comedy and Humor Studies SIG of SCMS

Website: https://humorinamericaconference.wordpress.com

“Comedy/Humor” will be held on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin from June 18-20, 2020. The conference will feature paper panels and roundtables on all aspects of American humor, American comedy, and all thing and topics inbetween.

Please send proposals to ahsa.humorstudies@gmail.com by February 3, 2020. Notifications will be sent by March 20. Please feel free to contact the conference organizers with any questions at ahsa.humorstudies@gmail.com.

PAPERS:

Proposals for paper presentations of 15-17 minutes should consist of a 250-word proposal and A/V requests.

ROUNDTABLES:

Proposals for organized roundtables of 8-10 minute statements from each participant with significant time for discussion. Include an overview of 100 words for the overall theme, a brief description of each presenter’s topic, a proposed Chair (not required), and A/V requests.

NOTE: you may participate in one roundtable and give one paper.

WORKS IN PROGRESS:

Participant will submit a working draft of a book chapter or journal article one month before the conference for posting on conference website. Participants will sign up to read and discuss work in progress during a lunch or breakfast session, with food provided.

Note: you may submit a “Works in Progress” proposal and a paper or roundtable proposal, but the topics should be different.

ARTISTIC PERFORMANCES:

We are willing to consider approaches to humor studies that incorporate non-traditional modes. We are also willing to facilitate a performance or screening to encourage discussion. Email with questions.

We welcome proposals for paper presentations on any topic related to American humor and/or American comedy, broadly conceived. Scholars across the humanities are invited to present research on any of the following topics (or others related to humor, comedy, laughter, etc., etc.):

the relationship between comedy and humor as conceptual categories, along with all other related questions of theory and terminology
comedy in all its forms (TV, film, stand-up, podcasts, sketch, improv, theater, improv, etc.)
literary humor (novels, tales, sketches, poetry, children’s books, YA, science fiction, magazines, etc. from all times and places)
visual humor, comics, and graphic narratives
podcasts, internet humor, memes, and other new media
humor and gender, race, sexuality, class, religion, etc.
satire, ridicule, parody, wit and other forms of humor
humor in “serious” contexts or works
humor in regional, national, transnational, international, and other spatial contexts

We especially welcome proposals from scholars of color, junior scholars, and independent scholars. Graduate students attending the conference will be eligible for “Constance Rourke Travel Grant” to assist with travel funds. We highly encourage scholars to contribute to this fund. See the conference website for more information.

Attendees must be (or become) a member of the American Humor Studies Association. Presenters will be highly encouraged to submit article-length versions of their work for possible publication in Studies in American Humor, a peer-reviewed journal published by the American Humor Studies Association since 1974 and in conjunction with the Penn State University Press since 2015.

The conference registration fee will be $40 for graduate students, adjunct faculty, and independent scholars, and $75 for tenure-track faculty members.

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STANDING CALLS FOR PAPERS:

Call for Papers: Studies in American Humor

Studies in American Humor (StAH) invites submissions for upcoming issues. Submissions of essay manuscripts of between 5000 and 8000 words are welcome on any topic, theme, practice, practitioner, and medium of American humor. StAH values new transnational and interdisciplinary approaches as well as traditional critical and historical humanities scholarship.

The official journal of the American Humor Studies Association, Studies in American Humor (ISSN 0095-280X) has published scholarly essays, review essays, and book reviews on all aspects of American humor since 1974. Issues appear semi-annually in spring and fall; articles are indexed in the MLA International Bibliography and available in full text in EBSCOhost’s Humanities International Complete and Literary Reference Center databases.

Additional information can be found at studiesinamericanhumor.org. Please address essay submissions and inquiries to Judith Yaross Lee, Editor of Studies in American Humor, at studiesinamericanhumor@ohio.edu.

Please address books for review and interest in serving as a reviewer to

Tracy Wuster, Book Review Editor, at wustert@gmail.com

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Humor: The International Journal of Humor Research

Instructions for Authors

Contributors are invited to submit articles pertaining to humor research to the editor

Editor-in-chief
Giselinde Kuipers
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
University of Amsterdam
OZ Achterburgwal 185
1012DK Amsterdam
The Netherlands
email: humorjournal@gmail.com

See website for more information.

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Comedy Studies

Comedy plays a more important role today than ever before: it is a multi-billion dollar global industry, with Hollywood comedies taking major profits each year and comedians commanding huge salaries and audiences worldwide. Yet there is currently no academic journal dedicated to these cultural phenomena.

Comedy Studies is a response to this glaring absence. The journal will cover multiple aspects of comedy, with articles about both contemporary and historical comedy, interviews with practicing comedians and writers, reviews, letters and editorials. The journal seeks to be instrumental in creating interdisciplinary discourse about the nature and practice of comedy and provide a forum for the disparate voices of comedians, academics and writers. In this way, the journal aims to be the first step in the creation of a community committed to the promotion, documentation and expansion of the field of comedy studies.

Sample themes might include Ancient Greek theatre, the relation of comedy and food and comedy and gender. Another interest would be the role of comedy in therapy; in medical circles comedy is being incorporated into the healing process and professionals are beginning to develop methods of using laughter to deal with physical and psychological problems. The journal is also intent on investigating historical attempts to analyse comedy, from Aristotle to Freud. Finally, it aims to create links between the growing number of university departments who offer specialist units or courses in comedy in the UK and abroad.

Comedy Studies invites contributions from researchers and practitioners throughout the world seeking to analyse all aspects of comedy, laughter and joking. Some proposed topics are:

•    Contemporary performance aspects in comedy
•    Comedy and gender
•    Comedy and therapy
•    The comedy foreigner
•    Comedy in political life

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See this page for expired announcements.

Steven Andrew Benko says:

November 7, 2017 at 8:52 pm

CFP: Ethics in Comedy, edited by Steven A. Benko

What makes a joke right or wrong? When is it good or bad to laugh? The rights and wrongs of a
joke can be expressed in political terms: a joke is politically incorrect or it exploits a marginalized
group of people. Alternatively, a joke can be inappropriate or mean-spirited. A joke can make
someone feel bad about their race, ethnicity, religion, socio-economic status, body, gender
identity, and the list can go on and on. Laughter can hurt someone’s feelings, reveal that the
laugher lacks manners, or maybe holds to racist, sexist, or other offensive views. The same way
that a joke can make a person feel self conscious about an aspect of their self, laughter
reinforces in-group/out-group dynamics and can make a person feel excluded, isolated, or
alone.

These negatives are balanced against the good that jokes and laughter can do: when they
punch up, jokes and laughter can diminish the power that others hold over us. Comedians can
be the sharpest of cultural critics, using irony, satire, and parody to reveal hypocrisy, speak
difficult truths, and skewer social attitudes and biases that marginalize and oppress individuals
and groups.

But how do we speak of an ethics of comedy? The difficulty of an ethics of jokes and laughter is
that so much of what makes humor work — and much of the work that humor does — is based on
transgression. This edited volume seeks contributions that attempt to formulate an ethics of
comedy. When is a joke right or wrong? Is it wrong if it offends, or right if it offends in the right
way? How are we to determine the moral rightness or wrongness of laughing at one moment
but not the next? Are there jokes that ought not to be told or punch lines that ought not to be
laughed at? And how are we to know when this is the case?

The collection should be accessible to upper level undergraduates. Essays should articulate a
general approach to jokes and laughter and then apply that approach to specific examples.
Examples can be drawn from any medium (stand-up, television, movies, internet, etc.). Essays
that deal with comedians, topics, or ethical theories that undergraduate students would
encounter in other courses are encouraged.

Please submit proposals for essays of 6,000-8,500 words that explore the ethics of comedy:
– Frameworks for an ethics of humor, jokes, and laughter
– Normative ethical theories and humor, jokes, or laughter
– Ethics and superiority, relief, and incongruity theory
– An ethical analysis of a specific comedian
– How a particular ethicist, philosopher, or theologian addresses the moral rightness or
wrongness of laughter
– The ethics of jokes about a controversial social topic, e.g. abortion, body shape or size,
sexual violence, illness, etc.
– Historical approaches to the ethics of laughter: what was the moral status of humor,
laughter, and jokes in the past?
– Evolving social standards, ethics, and humor: what jokes used to be funny and are not
appropriate any more?
– Politics vs. ethics in humor

Send your questions about the book or submit your short description to Steven A. Benko at
benkos@meredith.edu . The chapter proposal should consist of a short abstract (275-350
words), chapter title, and a brief biography. Collaborations are welcomed. All proposals must be
received by January 7, 2018. Final manuscripts of 6,000-8,500 words should be submitted in
MLA style by August 20, 2018.

One thought on “Announcements”

Steven Andrew Benko says:
November 7, 2017 at 8:52 pm


CFP: Ethics in Comedy, edited by Steven A. Benko

What makes a joke right or wrong? When is it good or bad to laugh? The rights and wrongs of a
joke can be expressed in political terms: a joke is politically incorrect or it exploits a marginalized
group of people. Alternatively, a joke can be inappropriate or mean-spirited. A joke can make
someone feel bad about their race, ethnicity, religion, socio-economic status, body, gender
identity, and the list can go on and on. Laughter can hurt someone’s feelings, reveal that the
laugher lacks manners, or maybe holds to racist, sexist, or other offensive views. The same way
that a joke can make a person feel self conscious about an aspect of their self, laughter
reinforces in-group/out-group dynamics and can make a person feel excluded, isolated, or
alone.

These negatives are balanced against the good that jokes and laughter can do: when they
punch up, jokes and laughter can diminish the power that others hold over us. Comedians can
be the sharpest of cultural critics, using irony, satire, and parody to reveal hypocrisy, speak
difficult truths, and skewer social attitudes and biases that marginalize and oppress individuals
and groups.

But how do we speak of an ethics of comedy? The difficulty of an ethics of jokes and laughter is
that so much of what makes humor work — and much of the work that humor does — is based on
transgression. This edited volume seeks contributions that attempt to formulate an ethics of
comedy. When is a joke right or wrong? Is it wrong if it offends, or right if it offends in the right
way? How are we to determine the moral rightness or wrongness of laughing at one moment
but not the next? Are there jokes that ought not to be told or punch lines that ought not to be
laughed at? And how are we to know when this is the case?

The collection should be accessible to upper level undergraduates. Essays should articulate a
general approach to jokes and laughter and then apply that approach to specific examples.
Examples can be drawn from any medium (stand-up, television, movies, internet, etc.). Essays
that deal with comedians, topics, or ethical theories that undergraduate students would
encounter in other courses are encouraged.

Please submit proposals for essays of 6,000-8,500 words that explore the ethics of comedy:
– Frameworks for an ethics of humor, jokes, and laughter
– Normative ethical theories and humor, jokes, or laughter
– Ethics and superiority, relief, and incongruity theory
– An ethical analysis of a specific comedian
– How a particular ethicist, philosopher, or theologian addresses the moral rightness or
wrongness of laughter
– The ethics of jokes about a controversial social topic, e.g. abortion, body shape or size,
sexual violence, illness, etc.
– Historical approaches to the ethics of laughter: what was the moral status of humor,
laughter, and jokes in the past?
– Evolving social standards, ethics, and humor: what jokes used to be funny and are not
appropriate any more?
– Politics vs. ethics in humor

Send your questions about the book or submit your short description to Steven A. Benko at
benkos@meredith.edu . The chapter proposal should consist of a short abstract (275-350
words), chapter title, and a brief biography. Collaborations are welcomed. All proposals must be
received by January 7, 2018. Final manuscripts of 6,000-8,500 words should be submitted in
MLA style by August 20, 2018.