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