Comedy: From the Arts to Cultural Industry
4th International Conference on Literary and Cultural Studies

Organized by the Department of English, National Taipei University of Technology, Taiwan

November 28-29, 2014
Abstract Deadline: August 15, 2014

Comedy has gained wide popularity in contemporary culture. However, it seems to be less acclaimed and less theorised than tragedy. As a genre of ‘irresistible motion,’ comedy, so difficult to pin down, is a subject constantly being misunderstood (Alenka Zupančič). This conference will explore the nature, history, and structure of the comic in its varied manifestations across time, aesthetic genres and academic disciplines. We encourage in particular reflections on the nature and structure of current comedies from popular culture such as that of sitcoms (for example The Big Bang Theory) and renditions of classic comedies such as Shakespeare’s comic plays: in what ways are Aristotelian comic structures, literary traditions and timeless themes of comedy re- worked and re-imagined in such cultural industry as popular shows and performances?
We invite proposals on humor and comedy from all periods of literary history and across the range of humanities disciplines.

Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:
Theorizing the comic: comedy and critical theory
Carnival, comedy, satire, parody, the absurd
The Big Bang Theory: the themes, styles, and structures of popular comedies in Hollywood and on American television today
Pedagogy and humor: How to use comedy in language teaching Inter-disciplinary comedy
Translating comedy: the non-translatability of humor
Black humor: death and the comic
Manifestations of the comic: jokes, physical comedy, and caricature
Inappropriate material: the limits and ethics of the comic
The wisdom of fools: comic philosophers and philosopher comics
Humorlessness

In addition to general sessions, we will feature a special panel with papers delivered by graduate and undergraduate students.

Keynote Speakers:
Professor Jeremy Tambling
Professor Leland de la Durantaye

Jeremy Tambling is a writer and critic. He retired at the end of 2013 as Professor of Literature at Manchester University. Before that, he was Professor of Comparative Literature in the University of Hong Kong. He is the author of several books, the latest being Hölderlin and the Poetry of Tragedy: Readings in Sophocles, Shakespeare, Nietzsche and Benjamin (Sussex Academic Press, 2014).

Leland de la Durantaye is Professor of Literature at Claremont McKenna College in California, and before that, Gardner Cowles Associate Professor of English at Harvard University. He is the author of Style is Matter: The Moral Art of Vladimir Nabokov (Cornell University Press, 2007) and Giorgio Agamben: A Critical Introduction (Stanford University Press, 2009), and is the translator of Jacques Jouet's Upstaged (Dalkey Archive, 2011). In addition to his academic work he has written on literature, philosophy and the visual arts for The New York Times, The London Review of Books, The Village Voice, Bookforum, The Believer, Cabinet, The Harvard Review and other newspapers and magazines.

Please email 250-300 word abstracts by August 15, 2014 to: ntuteng@gmail.com

Abstracts should include name and affiliation, email address, and a brief bio (100 words). For the special undergraduate panel, applicants should include their supervisor’s name, affiliation, and email.