Sharon Lockyer’s keynote explores the stand-up of pregnant comedians: the autobiographical element & the way they are both enacting and critiquing their pregnant experiences. Before then examining intersectionality within stand-up comedy & the need to engage with this in future research #ISHS2025
Gil Greengross delivers the first keynote unpicking the enduring stereotype that men are funnier than women #ISHS2025
Rodney Taveira explores parahuman rights in Paul Beatty’s satirical novel ‘The Sell Out’ #ISHS2025
Benjamin Nickl considers synthetic humour, AI & neural rights as an emerging issue #ISHS2025
Donald Papy draws on both popular culture as well as transcripts from court cases to highlight moments of humour and laughter in the US Supreme Court #ISHS2025
Stephen Skalicky draws on an example of “citizen satire” that brought both The Onion and The Babylon Bee together as opposed to censorship #ISHS2025
Paulo Henrique Martins de Sous examines deep fakes in Brazil to question when impersonation becomes illegal #ISHS2025
Luisa F. Isaza-Ilbarra draws on cases in Latin America to consider whether social media should be considered literary satire #ISHS2025
João Paulo Capelotti explores the law’s desire to protect political speech under the guise of public interest, but queries how cases of humour should be navigated when public interest is absent or challenging to establish #ISHS2025
Laura Little explores the emphasis in First Amendment Law on time, place and manner and the need for the law (more generally) to be updated so it is appropriate for the internet, specific digital humour #ISHS2025
Alberto Godioli delivers the second keynote, examining dark humour and the law through a series of recent cases; the judiciary and humour studies academics can both benefit from each others’ expertise going forward #ISHS2025
In today’s first keynote Andrew Bicker introduces and critiques the satiric ideology and explores the form, specifically the degenerative aesthetics, of Far-Right memes #ISHS2025
Michael Hoppman examines the distinctions and ultimately correlations of benign violation theory and belief debugging theory #ISHS2025
Ian Brodie delivers an entertaining paper on “dad jokes” and their pursuit of joy and creation of communitas #ISHS2025
Last but not least Mikolaj Borkowski examines different linguistics approaches to joking about religion in England, America and Poland and questions whether it remains taboo #ISHS2025
Next Lucy Spoliar examines Fatiha El-Ghorri’s stand-up comedy and her challenging of gender norms and framing religiosity positively to reverse dominant secular narratives #ISHS2025
I begin the Religion and Stand-Up Comedy panel with the question on everybody’s lips…would Saint Augustine of Hippo cancel Bill Cosby? #ISHS2025
Finally Thibaut Auplat dissects the use of sarcasm as a strategy to engage with Islam in the Heresies of John of Damascus #ISHS2025
Next Anita Houck explores the ambiguous, polyvalent and relational nature of Divine laughter from Ancient Greece to The Simpsons #ISHS2025
First Paul Martin explores Ancient Greek poetry to examine humour about the Gods and its entanglement with theology and literary aesthetics #ISHS2025
Is there anything real? And if there is, is reallity a joke? In the author meets critics session, Giorgio Baruchello and Henrietta Serban take Tristan Burts book apart, and Tristan replies. www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi... Series editor Lydia Amir moderates. #ISHS2025 #metaphysics
Giorgio Baruchello shifts the focus from words to images to explore the philosophy of humour with a particular focus on the relationship of humour and cruelty #ISHS2025
Giorgio Baruchello makes a bold claim on the mountains of #Krakow at the #ISHS2025. If you prefer the words (and Giorgio says you have to read the vols), www.degruyterbrill.com/serial/bahc-... @dgb-linguistics.bsky.social #humorstudies
Next Mark Ralkowski brings together Heidegger and Curb Your Enthusiasm to explore the phenomenology of humour and its potential to critique through defamiliarisation #ISHS2025
Lydia Amir offers a paper in memory of Daniel Dennett and his theory of humour which highlights emotion as “the control centre” of cognition #ISHS2025
