Upcoming ISHS Conference

33rd Annual Conference of  the International Society for Humor Studies Conference, July 3-7, 2023, University of Boston, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. The Conference website will be avaliable in early January 2023. For more information, contact the Conference Organizer, Patrice Oppliger at ishs2023@bu.edu.

Upcoming Annual, Biennial, and Quadrennial Conferences

Twenty-Ninth AHSN Colloquium, University of Sydney, Australia, February 6-7 (online) and February 9-10 (in person), 2023. The 29th Colloquium of the Australasian Humour Studies Network (AHSN) will be held in two parts: online on February 6 and 7 through Zoom and in person on February 9 and 10 at the Abercrombie Business School, University of Sydney, Australia. The colloquium convener is Ben Nickl. The colloquium theme will be A Human Right to Humour. For more information, contact the colloquium organizers at ahsnconference@gmail.com or visit the AHSN website at https://ahsnhumourstudies.org/events.

Thirteenth Humor Research Conference, March 31-April 1, 2023, Texas A & M University–Commerce, Texas, USA. The 13th Humor Research Conference invites submissions for an online international multidisciplinary two day conference, based in Commerce, Texas. The conference includes an opening session and reception, paper sessions, panels, posters, and workshops. Paper submissions should be sent to HRC@tamuc.edu by January 15, 2023. For more information, contact the Conference Organizers at HRC@tamuc.edu or visit the Conference website. ISHS Endorsed Conference.

Thirty-Sixth Annual Conference of the Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor, April 27-30, 2023, Mesa, Arizona. The theme of the 36th AATH Conference will be We're Serious about Humor. Conference discounts are available to ISHS members. For more information, visit the AATH Conference page at http://www.aath.org.

Forty-Ninth Annual Meeting of The Association for the Study of Play, May 17-19, 2023, New York City, USA. The 2023 Annual Meeting of The  Association for the Study of Play will take place at the Borough of Manhattan Community College in New York City. The theme of this year's conference is Playship: A Pathway For Building and Sustaining Equitable Playful Spaces. For more information, visit the TASP website.

Sixteenth Annual Conference of the Lighthearted Philosophers Association, October 7-8, 2022, Greensboro, North Carolina, USA. The Lighthearted Phliosophers Society will hold its annual conference in Greensboro, North Carolina. The deadline for submissions is June 15 with acceptance notifications send by July 15. Details on how to register and submit papers for the conference can be found at https://www.lightheartedphilosophers.com/. For additional conference information, you can write to the conference organizers at lighthearted.philosophers@gmail.com.

Fourth Taboo Conference, September 28-30, 2022, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy. The theme of the 4th Taboo Conference is Taboo in Language, Culture, and Communication. For more information, visit the Conference website at http://taco2020.grupposymposia.it/. ISHS Endorsed Conference.

Sixth International Gelological Congress, May 12-15, 2021, St. Petersburg, Russia. The sixth International Gelological Congress will focus on the communicative potential of humor and laughter, but also the communicative ambivalence of laughter as a phenomenon, building and destroying communication. The Congress will not only focus on interpersonal communication, but also on intercultural, transcultural, cross-cultural communication, sociology of laughter, the fear of laughter, tomfoolery, laughing aggression, communicative aspects, and social genesis of laughter. The Congress invites participants from sociology, social philosophy, psychology, sociolinguistics, folkloristics, literary criticism and others.  Interested participant should submit registration materials by March 15, 2021, and paper abstracts (up to 1000 words) by February 25, 2019.  For more information, contact the congress organizer Sergei Troitckii at sergtroy@yandex.

Nineteenth Annual Conference of the International Society for Luso-Hispanic Humor Studies, October 19-21, 2019, Universidad Autonoma de Baja California Sur. The International Society for Luso-Hispanic Humor Studies will hold its 19th Annual Conference on the campus of the Universidad Autonoma de Baja California Sur in Mexico. For more Conference and Society information, visit ISLHHS at http://ilhhumorsoc.org/ or the Conference organizers at congresohumor2019@gmail.com.

Upcoming Seminars, Workshops, and Symposia

2022 Seminars and Webinars to be announced shortly. Watch this space for more information.

Recent Seminars, Workshops, and Symposia

Laughing in an Emergency: Humour in Contemporary Art. University of Manchester, United Kingdom, April 17-18, 2020. In addition to keynotes from leading international artists including Richard Bell (Australia) and Stefanos Tsivopoulos (Greece/US), the program will include papers from scholars and practitioners addressing the interface of humour and contemporary art from diverse theoretical and methodological perspectives. Topics to be addressed include, but are not restricted to, contemporary art and the following: humour and crisis, humour and the global south, humour and identity, humour and gender, humour and resistance, humour and the museum, humour and authenticity, humour and contemporaneity, humour and the art market, humour and cultural resilience.  For more information contact the Conference organizers at liae@manchester.ac.uk or visit the conference website at https://www.alc.manchester.ac.uk/history/connect/events/laughing-in/.

Twentieth International Summer School & Symposium on Humour and Laughter. July 27 to August 1, 2020, Martin Luther University, Halle, Germany. The International Summer Schools are intended for students and established investigators, planning research projects on humor, an opportunity to develop a strong foundation on the existing theoretical and methodological issues related to the scientific study of humor. For more information on the 2020 Summer School, contact Willibald Ruch at w.ruch@psychologie.uzh.ch or the local organizer, Rene Proyer at rene.proyer@psych.uni-halle.de. For additional information on previous International Summer Schools, visit the Summer School homepage. ISHS Endorsed Symposium.

Humour and Satire in British Romanticism Conference, September 13-14, 2019, University of Durham, UK. The Humour and Satire in British Romanticism Conference will explore how Romantic writers navigated the various and often contradictory conceptualizations of humour. Conference topics will include: (1) humour in translation and across cultures, (2) the politics of humour, (3) gender and humor, (4) romantic readings from classical satire, (5) puns and linguistic ambiguity, and (6) scientific understandings of laughter and humor.  For more information, write to Daniel Norman, the conference organizer at romantichumourandsatire@gmail.com.

Humor in the Beginning: Cultural Interaction of Laughter and the Comic in the First Phase of Asian Religions, Christianity, and Islam, Soeterbeek Conference Centre, Ravenstein, The Netherlands, March 14-17, 2019. Humor in the Beginning invites invites scholars from different fields and academic traditions to return to the origins of Asian religions, Christianity, and Islam and investigate the complex relationship between religion and humor and laughter. For this conference, scholars are challenged to investigate the topic of religion and humor within the specific historical contexts that their sources provide. Sources include but are not restricted to (literary) prose texts, poetry and visual materials. It is the wish of the organizers to stimulate fruitful comparisons between the work of scholars from the humanities and colleagues from fields such as sociology and gelotology. Abstracts of 250 words for one of the sessions of the conference can be submitted up until October 13, 2018 to the conference organizer, Roald Dijkstra at r.dijkstra@let.ru.nl.

The following is a list of websites that belong to ISHS members who offer workshops for businesses, organizations, and groups. We provide these listings solely as a service to our members. A listing here does not imply ISHS endorsement or sponsorship.

Allen Klein—Humor for Workplace Wellness - Offers keynotes, breakout sessions, nad workshops on how to use
humor to deal with changes, challenges, and not-so-funny stuff in the workplace and in life. (Founder: Allen Klein).

The Humor Project — Organization devoted to helping people tap the positive power of humor and creativity (Founder: Joel Goodman).

HumorRx – Provider of  professional seminars, books, articles, and other products related to humor and health (Founder: Karyn Buxman).

HumorWorks – Provider of professional seminars that explore the benefits of humor in the workplace (Founder: John Morreall).

Jest for the Health of It – Provider of humor and health resources and workshops (Founder: Patty Wooten).

L.A.U.G.H.S. – Provider of seminars to help people develop their humor and laughter skills to reduce stress and promote physical well-being.  (Founder: Dorothea Keeling). 

Laughter Remedy — Provider of humor and health resources and workshops (Founder: Paul McGhee).

Laughter Works — Provider of keynotes, in-services, professional development trainings, employee appreciation events, and retreats (Founders: Kay Caskey and Laurie Young).

Stand Up For Mental Health — Provider of stand-up comedy courses for people with mental illness as a way of building self-esteem (Founder: David Granirer).

Steve Kaplan's Comedy Intensive — Provider of professional seminars and workshops for screenwriters, directors and actors exploring comic performance theory and techniques.