Laughter, Humor, and Power: Cultural Palimpsests in Spanish Narratives and Performance (PAMLA)
San Francisco, CA
Organization: PAMLA
Event: PAMLA
ABSTRACT
This session seeks proposals that explore from multidisciplinary perspectives the interconnection between humor, laughter, and power in narratives and cultural artifacts written and produced in Spanish. Humor has been traditionally studied to understand the social, moral, political, and aesthetic value in the cultural context of its production. But its embodiment in laughter as an affect has been given less attention. This session welcome papers that examine the presence of laughter in narratives (fiction, films, and mini-series) in cultural artifacts, in high and popular culture and in performance. The session also pays attention to laughter as the intended effect of these cultural manifestations. In seeking to discuss the interpretive aspect of humor and laughter our session also welcome papers that build on the 2025 PAMLA Conference theme “Palimpsests: Memory and Oblivion.”
DESCRIPTION
Given its effectiveness to subvert, mock, shock, disturb, undermine, or comply with culturally constructed paradigms of thought, humor, in its many cultural manifestations becomes a strategic tool to challenge power. Laughter (smiles and grins) can be understood as the affective and non-linguistic manifestation of humor in the subject’s body, a form of excess that permeates the boundaries of the body. This session welcomes papers that can enhance the understanding of laughter from diverse critical and theoretical approaches, including psychoanalytic theory and affect theory. Papers that engage the representation of laughter within the diegesis of narratives and performances (fiction, film, mini-series, theater, and stand-up comedy) are strongly encouraged. Given that humor and laughter might be rooted in “common codes,” as conceived by Roman Jakobson in his pathbreaking model of communication, we also invite proposals that consider, among other themes, the following questions: How does the concept of the palimpsest relate to humor as a layered and evolving cultural artifact? Can humor function as a palimpsest, where past jokes and comedic tropes are rewritten while traces of earlier meanings remain? How does humor navigate the tension between memory (preserving cultural narratives) and oblivion (erasing or recontextualizing them)? In what ways does humor serve as a tool for both remembering and forgetting historical trauma or sensitive subjects?
https://www.pamla.org/conference/
Rakhel Villamil-Acera
