Previous Humor Conferences
We've just hosted our third humor conference and are looking forward to the fourth. Although we are not accepting abstracts for out 2010 conference at this time, to see what we've been up to in past years, take a few moments to peruse our previous performances.
Fall, 2008: "What's So Funny?: Work, Play, and Humor in English Studies"
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The keynote speaker for 2008's conference was poet George Bilgere of John Carroll University. Dr. Bilgere's poetry has appeared in Poetry, Ploughshares, Best American Poetry, and elsewhere. He has also published four books of poetry: Haywire (2006), The Good Kiss (2002), Big Bang (1999), and The Going (1995). |
Panels included:
- "Parody Loves Company"
- with presentations by Michael Sobiech, J. Zack Kessler, and Damien Wilker
- "Who, What, Where, Why, Ha!: Humor Theory in the Eighth Year of the 21st Century"
- with presentations by Sara McLaughlin, Ramit Ring, and Ian Scott Todd
- "Portmanteautally Awesome: Wordplay and Antics"
- with presentations by Janis Butler Holm, Jonathan Wright, and Kevin McFadden
- "Humor and Popular Culture: How We've Smartened up Our Dumbing Down"
- with presentations by Albert Rouzie, Aaron Kerley/Deborah Sanchez, Tiffany Tennant, and Elizabeth Chilbert
Fall, 2006: "Don't You Have Anything Better to Do?: Work, Play, and Humor in English Studies"
The keynote speakers for 2006's conference included:
- * Matthew Wikander, who presented "'Thrift, Horatio, Thrift!' Work, Play and Money in the Henry IV plays and Hamlet,"
- * Albert Rouzie, who presented "No Mere Metaphor: Games, Play, and English Studies," and
- * Mark Halliday, who presented "Everything is Broken."
- Michael C. Ryan: "A Tragedy and Comedy of Eco-Sabotage: A Comparison of Jim Harrison's A Good Day to Die and Edward Abbey's The Monkey Wrench Gang"
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- Anthony Viola: "'Humorizing' Violence (or Why It's OK to Laugh at the Making of Simulated Snuff)"
[abstract]
This presentation will include a creative sampling from a novel in progress, titled What We Did, which attempts to incorporate humor while dramatizing the faking of several violent events, filmed murders. The reading will be prefaced by a short discussion of examples, both from film and contemporary fiction, which have attempted to "humorize" violence, both real and faked. - Paul Shovlin: "Not Funny at All: The State and Authorial Commentary in the Work of Charles Beaumont"
[abstract]
Although Charles Beaumont's name is relatively unknown, people are often familiar with his work through the screenplays he wrote for the original Twilight Zone. Beaumont also wrote a fair deal of short fantasy and science fiction, characterized by sharp social commentary and wry, black humor. In this presentation, I'm going to take a close look at a relatively forgotten short story entitled "Gentleman, Be Seated," situated in the future concerning a society that has outlawed humor. I'll look at how Beaumont characterizes the State and its role, the politics of humor, and briefly discuss how the genre of science fiction works as a filter of ambiguity in terms of this social satire. - Jeff Pettineo: "Toiling in Earnest?: Considering Work and Play in Hawthorne's The Blithedale Romance"
[abstract]
It is not likely that one would characterize Hawthorne's The Blithedale Romance as a "book about playing." Yet, Hawthorne's fictional Brook Farmers are frequently engaged in various forms of leisure--especially performance. Even Hawthorne himself uses entertainment and performance, and for more than just diversion. Relying on F.O. Matthiessen's notion of the "device of multiple choice," critical studies of Hawthorne and the historical Brook Farm, and Victor Turner's ideas of social drama, this presentation will examine the role of "play" in the forms of leisure, drama, and language. In particular, I will examine play as it translates into performance and "word-play" as it relates to entertainment. These notions of "play" provide an alternate and often undervalued route through which to approach the larger social and creative project of one of America's foremost literary figures, as reading "playfully" may enhance our understanding of the comic and tragic Hawthorne, that fictional Blithedale and the historic Brook Farm. - Julie Platt: "Take My Poem--Please!: Exploring the Propensity for Humorous Disruption in Contemporary Poetry Performance"
[abstract]
When attending a poetry reading in an academic setting, and audience may frequently encounter a poet attempting to inject his or her performance with humorous discourse. As a typical poetry reading includes more breaks between complete pieces than a fiction or nonfiction reading, the tendency of a poet to disrupt the textual space of his or her reading and "improvise" before, after, and sometimes during a poem is at least partially explainable. Questions that remain are, why did improvise using humor? Is humor an attempt to make poetry more palatable to the general public? Does poetry seem more "sacred" by comparison to "profane" humor? Does humor provide for deeper understanding of poetry regardless of the poetry's seriousness? Presently, little formal study is devoted to performance of contemporary poetry, but consideration of the current trends in performance can shed some light on poetry's evolving form and function in our world. - Justin Thurman: "Writers at Work: The Personal, the Professional, and the Conceptual Labor Metaphors of Writing Instruction in the Academy"
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Cognitive poetics is an inter-disciplinary field that combines research from linguistics, the neurosciences, and literary studies to theorize about the effects texts have on their readers. In this paper, I endeavor to merge composition studies and cognitive poetics by using cognitive metaphor theory to analyze the metalinguistic conventions of first-year writing instruction. Research in cognitive metaphor suggests that many currently "dead" metalinguistic conventions, while pervasive, are highly suspect and warrant revision. As writing teachers, we need to "reframe" writing and find new domains of experience other than battle, construction and "professional" activities that more accurately represent academic inquiry and discourse. - Matthew R. Turner: "'I Wish You'd Keep My Hands to Yourself': Word Play and Linguistic Humor in the Marx Brothers"
[abstract]
In the history of comedy, few comedians approach the stature of the Marx Brothers as verbal comedians. As masters of comedic word play, the Marx Brothers provide an ideal basis through which to examine comedic techniques at a linguistic level. The Marx Brothers developed their comic style in the theatrical/linguistic venue of Vaudeville. Unlike the silent film comedians, the Marx Brothers did not have to rely exclusively on visuals to create comedy. This became important to a developing film industry which turned to more verbal and literary types of comedy once sound technology became available. In this paper I will examine how the Marx Brothers undermine traditional linguistic meaning; I will rely on Schopenhauer's concept of the ludicrous as the tension or dichotomy between what is conceived and what is perceived. By applying this theory to specific examples from the Marx Brothers' films, I will demonstrate how the Marx Brothers create humor on a linguistic level through the use of puns, wit, and wordplay. - Lauren Gantz: "Self-Deprecation and the Democratic Classroom"
[abstract]
In this paper I utilize Peter Elbow's concept of the democratic classroom to explore the possibilities of humor, specifically self-deprecating humor, in creating a learning community. I posit that to many students, particularly first-year writing students, egalitarian classroom structures seem intimidating and alien. When faced with sharing responsibility for the success or failure of the course, many first-year students resist, returning to more familiar authoritarian models of teaching and learning. Although in some cases necessary, this ultimately hinders the development of a democratic learning community. In order for students to become more comfortable in an egalitarian classroom, using self-deprecating humor breaks down the wall between teacher and student marking traditional classrooms. While there is danger in over-utilizing humor and breaking that wall down completely, many students respond enthusiastically, taking a more lively interest in the class. If they know I can make fun of myself and my imperfections, they begin to understand that I do not expect them to be perfect, which lessens the pressure first-year students mat feel. This allows them to laugh, relax, and begin forming a learning community that is united through mutual encouragement.
In this presentation, I will discuss two differing reactions to and representations of eco-sabotage and radical environmental action in Ed Abbey's The Monkey Wrench Gang and Jim Harrison's A Good Day to Die. The two texts depend heavily on a similar plot structure and general theme: a loose collection of misfit friends destroy symbols of the American technocracy, with Western damming projects as their primary targets. Yet, the tone and trajectory of the two novels greatly diverge. While Abbey's text, and anarchistic, comedic Western romance that depicts sabotage and law-breaking in a humorous fashion, propelled the author to the forefront of the budding environmental movement, Harrison's brooding, anti-sentimental, and tragic novel remains a relatively obscure text in the modern American canon of ecofiction.