Hello All,
Happy New Year.  I am currently working to organize a
Humor Studies Caucus of the American Studies Association.

This organization will work as an institutional space to promote the study
of humor through ASA.  The first order of business is to organize panels for
next year's conference, which is November 5-8 in Washington, D.C.

The best way to get onto the program is to create full panels, although
individual papers are also okay.  We are working on organizing the
officially sponsored panel, which will be a roundtable about the general
state of humor studies in academia.

There are two ways to work on panels:
1) You can propose a panel or individual paper on a subject related to
humor.  We will look for a group of panelists from the current caucus list
and from other CFPs.  If you propose a panel, you are agreeing to do much of
the work of organizing, which involves choosing the papers, finding a
moderator, and filling out the ASA form.


2) We have two  panels that we are looking for papers for.  They are--
Political Humor in the post-9/11 Era:
Papers on all aspects of political humor and satire are welcome: stand-up,
visual and cartoon humor, film and television, etc.  Focus should be on
humor in the 2000s from an American or cross-cultural perspective.
Comparative pieces discussing connections between another era and the 2000s
will also be considered.
Submit proposals to: [log in to unmask]

"The Assault of Laughter": Mark Twain's Humor in American Culture:
Papers are welcome on the importance of humor in Mark Twain's work and/or in
American culture during the Gilded Age more generally.  Papers focusing on
cultural aspects are most welcome, although textual analyses will be
considered.
Submit proposals to: [log in to unmask]
If you have any questions, please let me know.  If you would like to be on a
separate mailing list for this group, let me know that as well.

Best,

Tracy Wuster
American Studies, UT Austin
Community Organizer, HSC-ASA