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Writer's pictureSig Team

SCMS Comedy Panels/Papers


Here is a preliminary list of comedy and humor related panels and panels that include papers that might be of interest to our members.

Our SIG meeting will be on Friday at 11:15am in the Kent Room.

Session B - 11:00AM-12:45PM, Wednesday, March 14, 2018

B8 Mediating Love, Desire, and Lust

Chair: Stacey Weber-Feve, Iowa State University

  • Stacey Weber-Feve, Iowa State University, “‘Free Women?’: Sensuality and Embodied Spectatorship in Małgorzata Szumowska’s Elles (2011)”

  • Ganga Rudraiah, University of Toronto, “When the Lights Go Off: Significations of the `First Night´ Scene in Tamil Cinema”

  • Scott St. Pierre, Bucknell University, “Dirty Old Man: Larry Clark's Teen Lust”

  • John Alberti, Northern Kentucky University, “Addicted to Love: The Productive Pathology of the Romantic Comedy in the Netflix Series Love”

B12 Tropes and Concepts in Screen Comedy

Chair: John Bruns, College of Charleston

  • Luke Holmaas, University of Wisconsin–Madison,“Of Gremlins and Popstars: Considering the Legacy of Vulgar Modernism”

  • Stephanie Clayton, University of East Anglia, “Grindah's Rise to Fame: Witnessing 'Celebrity' in BBC's People Just Do Nothing”

  • Ben Singer, University of Wisconsin–Madison, “Comedic Coincidence and the Synchronism Gag”

  • Mackenzie Leadston, Ohio State University, “Happily Never After: The Visual Politics of Contemporary French Romantic Comedy

Session D - 3:00-4:45PM, Wednesday, March 14, 2018

D13 Dissecting The Frog: New Approaches in Humor Studies

Chair: Benjamin Wright, University of Toronto

Co-Chair: Joshua Moss, California State University, Chico

  • Jennifer Bean, University of Washington, “The Art of Falling Apart: Grotesque Laughter and Female Clowns, 1890-1920”

  • Benjamin Wright, University of Toronto, “Best of the Worst: Comedy Podcasting and Participatory Snark”

  • Paul Cote, University of Maryland, “Laughing Gnomes, Goblins, and Clowns: The Pure Camp of David Bowie’s Novelty Songs"

  • Joshua Moss, California State University, Chico, “Punching Snooki: Crisis Slapstick and Geo-violence in Contemporary Humor””

Session E - 5:00-6:45PM, Wednesday, March 14, 2018

E11 Romcom Urbanism: Genre, Gender, and Place

Chair: Martha Shearer, Indiana University

Co-Chair: Anna Viola Sborgi, King's College London

  • Joshua Glick, Hendrix College, “Dreaming on the Edge: Coney Island, Classical Hollywood, and the Persistence of Nostalgia”

  • Anna Viola Sborgi, King's College London, “‘Lofts are no place for women’: Loft-Living and Gender in North and East London Millennial Romcoms”

  • Martha Shearer, Indiana University, “‘Second chances don’t expire until midnight’: New Year’s Eve and the ‘New’ Times Square”

  • Noelle Griffis, Auburn University, “I Heart West Covina: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’s Deconstruction of Genre and Place”

Session G - 12:00-1:45PM, Thursday, March 15, 2018

G20 Our Bodies, Our Comedy: The Embodied Humor of Women Comedians Chair: Amber Day, Bryant University

Co-Chair: Viveca Greene, Hampshire College

  • Seth Soulstein, Cornell University, “Mad Laugh(t)ers: Women’s Hysterical Laughter as an Alternative Carnival”

  • Kriszta Pozsonyi, Cornell University, “Aging Comedic Voices: The Cinematic Swan Songs of Mae West, Lucille Ball, and Moms Mabley”

  • Ashlynn d'Harcourt, University of Texas at Austin, “Clowning Around: Vaudeville Anarchy in Women Comics’ Stand-up Comedy Specials”

  • Amber Day, Bryant University, and Viveca Greene, Hampshire College, “OB Tampons and National Champions: (White) Feminist Satirists vs Rape Culture”

Session I - 4:00-5:45PM, Thursday, March 15, 2018

I5 Parody and Participation Chair: Jonathan Kahana, University of California, Santa Cruz

  • Jonathan Kahana, University of California, Santa Cruz, “Crimes Against the Original: Video Parody, Critical History, and ‘Sacred Reenactment’”

  • Jordan Schonig, University of Chicago, “Purposiveness without Purpose: On Reddit's Aesthetic Categories”

  • James Hansen, Oberlin College, “Make-believe Video Space: Joe Gibbons's Pixelvision Intrusions”

I22 Ageing Texts / Ageing Audiences: Memory, Adaptation, and Revival

Chair: Richard McCulloch, University of Huddersfield

Co-Chair: Inger-Lise Kalviknes Bore, Birmingham City University

  • Hazel Collie, Birmingham City University, “‘My Time’: Ageing Television Audiences, Generation, and Memory”

  • Line Nybro Petersen, University of Southern Denmark, “Growing Older with Lorelai and Rory: The Role of Gilmore Girls for Fans in a Life Course Perspective”

  • Jenni Lehtinen, Nazarbayev University, “Rejuvenating the Canon: 21st-Century Adaptation, Online Audiences, and the Metamorphosis of Doña Bárbara”

  • Richard McCulloch, University of Huddersfield, and Inger-Lise Kalviknes Bore, Birmingham City University, “Bringing Brent Back: Affective Continuities, Transmedia Audiences, and the Unfolding Celebrity Text”

I23 Psychiatry, Policing, and Incarceration

Chair: Christopher Cwynar, Defiance College

  • Christopher Cwynar, Defiance College, “Ear Hustle and the Ambivalent Politics of the First-person Narrative Non-fiction Podcast Genre”

  • Olivia Banner, University of Texas at Dallas, “The Gaze of Psychiatric Videotape: Gendering and Racializing the Cybernetic Patient”

  • Chris Barnes, Syracuse University, “Mapping the Prison in The Prison in Twelve Landscapes”

  • Eric Forthun, University of Texas at Austin, “Maria Bamford, Lady Dynamite, and the Stand-up Comic's Influence on the Sitcom Format"

Session K - 1:15-3:00PM, Friday, March 16, 2018

K12 Sketchy Humorists: Black Sexuality in the Comic Works of Spencer Williams, Josephine Baker, and Larry Fuller Chair: Terri Francis, Indiana University

Respondent: Glenda Carpio, Harvard University

  • Terri Francis, Indiana University, “Josephine Baker’s Oppositional Burlesque: Strategic Incongruity and Film Pioneering”

  • Jacqueline Stewart, University of Chicago, “The Girl in Room 20: Spencer Williams' Comedies of Black Female Performance”

  • Rebecca Wanzo, University of Washington at St. Louis, “Rape and Race in the Gutter: Larry Fuller and White Whore Funnies”

K15 Radical Romantic Comedy Chair: Maria San Filippo, Goucher College

  • Leslie Abramson, Loyola University Chicago, “Comedies of De-Marriage: Silent Cinema and Legal Interventionism”

  • Sueyoung Park-Primiano, Ithaca College, “The Awkward Truth: Failure to Romance and the Art of Decoupling in the Films of Hong Sangsoo”

  • Maria San Filippo, Goucher College, “Love Crimes: Incest, Murder, and Queer(ing) Romcom”

  • Kyle Stevens, Appalachian State University, “The Sweet, Sweet Invisible Climax of The Telephone Book”

Session N - 11:00AM-12:45PM, Saturday, March 17, 2018

N15 Comedians, Transmedia Performance, and the Evolution of American Mass Media Chair: Stephanie Brown, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

  • Stephanie Brown, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, “#HashtagWars: The Humor of Social TV on Comedy Central’s @Midnight”

  • Kristen Anderson Wagner, Solano College, “‘TV’s Funniest Females’: Martha Raye, Imogene Coca, and the Female Vaudeo Star”

  • Heather Osborne-Thompson, California State University, Fullerton, “Tally Ho!: Nature Cat, Sketch Comedy, and PBS Kids”

Session O - 1:00-2:45PM, Saturday, March 17, 2018

O15 Memes Against Humanity

Chair: Lauren Berliner, University of Washington Bothell

  • Jaimie Baron, University of Alberta, “The Hateful Meme”

  • Lauren Berliner, University of Washington Bothell, “Spreading Cancer: The Memefication of Illness on Crowdfunding Sites”

  • Isra Ali, New York University, “Meme-ing Cultural Citizenship”

  • Leah Shafer, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, “Springtime for Hatred: Downfall Memes and Nationalism in Internet Cultures”

Session Q - 5:00-6:45PM, Saturday, March 17, 2018

Q2 Racial Confusion in Silent Cinema

Chair: Laura Horak, Carleton University

  • Maggie Hennefeld, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, “‘Make Me Laugh’: The Racial and Sexual Politics of Early Film Laughter”

  • Richard Abel, University of Michigan, “The Skin Color of Identity in Early American Movies”

  • Laura Horak, Carleton University, “Racial Science, Racial Cinema: Constructing the Boundaries of Roma, Jewish, Black, and White Identity in Swedish Silent Cinema”

  • Kim Khavar Fahlstedt, Stockholm University/Yale University, “Christian Bells and Heathen Souls: The Ambiguous Geography of Warner Oland in Old San Francisco (1927)”

Session S - 11:30AM-1:15PM, Sunday, March 18, 2018

T3 Subversive Media/Subversive Comedy

Chair: Rob King, Columbia University

Co-Chair: Nicholas Sammond, University of Toronto

  • Rob King, Columbia University, “The Revelations of Bill Hicks: Standup and Televangelism on Parallel Tracks”

  • Jessica Hoover, University of North Texas, “As Seen on TV: The Carol Burnett Show, Second Wave Feminism, and the One-Two Punch to Advertising”

  • Peter Kunze, University of Texas at Austin, “Black Conservative Satire, Social Media Celebrity, and the Alt Right”

  • Nicholas Sammond, University of Toronto, “Flatulence Will Get You Everywhere: The Kipper Kids and Non-sense Video”

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