For this special issue of Vox medii aevi, dedicated to the modern interpretations of medieval humour, comedy, and laughter, we invite original research addressing the subjects of perception and appropriateness of laughter in the eyes of the church and lay authors and authorities; laughter as a form of mystical experience; ritualized laughter; laughter as a didactic weapon; laughter as an instrument of social control; and gendered experiences of laughter.

Argument

Laughter has been a favourite topic for medievalists for many decades, yet the potential for new research remains great. Approaches have traditionally been framed through the work of Mikhail Bakhtin, whose ideas on carnival culture have long defined understandings of medieval comedy throughout the global scholarly community. Reflecting on the many ways that the study of humour has changed over the past decades, and on the multidisciplinary approaches that have driven these changes, in this issue we welcome new interpretations of medieval humour, comedy, and laughter. Considering sociological, anthropological, and literary perspectives, as well as historical work, views from visual studies, and research on the history of the emotions, we are interested in receiving papers that share original research on laughter, in the widest range of its manifestations throughout the Middle Ages.

Possible topics might include — but are not limited to:

• Perception and appropriateness of laughter in the eyes of the church and lay authors and authorities;
• Laughter as a form of mystical experience and as a religious act;
• Ritualized laughter;
• Laughter and other emotions’ expression in relation to human health;
• Depictions of laughter and humorous imagery in visual arts;
• Laughter as a didactic weapon;
• Laughter as an instrument of social control;
• Gendered experiences of laughter: constructing one’s identity.

We also welcome reviews of recently published books (in the past three years).

Submission Guidelines

We invite articles submissions that respond to the above issues and questions. Manuscripts should be between 6,000 and 10,000 words (footnotes and bibliography included).

Timetable

• Submission 15^th April 2021

• Publishing November 2021

Guidelines for Submitting and Formatting of Manuscripts

Editorial Board

Editor-in-Chief

• Svetlana Yatsyk – Candidate of Sciences (History), National Research University «Higher School of Economics».

Publisher

• Kirill Perepechkin – Specialist in History

Academic Editors

• Grigorii Borisov – Specialist in History; Post-Graduate Student, University of Tübingen
• Vasiliy Dolgopolov – Specialist in History
• Iliana Kandzha – MA in History; PhD Student, Central European University
• Irina Mastyaeva – MA in History; PhD Student, National Research University «Higher School of Economics»
• Vladimir Tauber – Candidate of Sciences (History), Moscow Kremlin Museums

Editorial Council

• Ilya Afanasyev — D. Phil. in History, National Research University “Higher School of Economics”.
• Sergei Agishev — Candidate of Sciences (History), Lomonosov Moscow State University.
• Nikolai Bondarko — Doctor of Sciences (Philology), Institute for Linguistic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
• Mikhail Dmitriev — Doctor of Sciences (History), Lomonosov Moscow State University.
• Andrei Doronin — Candidate of Sciences (History), German Historical Institute Moscow.
• Sergei Feodorov — Doctor of Sciences (History), Saint Petersburg State University.
• Sergei Ivanov — Doctor of Sciences (History), National Research University «Higher School of Economics».
• Maxim Kolpakov — Candidate of Sciences (History), Pskov State University.
• Evgeny Khvalkov — PhD, National Research University «Higher School of Economics» (St. Petersburg Campus).
• Tatyana Kushch — Doctor of Sciences (History), Ural Federal University.
• Mikhail Maizuls — Russian State University for the Humanities.
• Anastasia Palamarchuk — Doctor of Sciences (History), Saint Petersburg State University.
• Alexandr Sidorov — Doctor of Sciences (History), Institute of World History, of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
• Vladimir Tyulenev — Doctor of Sciences (History), Ivanovo State University.
• Feodor Uspenskii — Doctor of Sciences (Philology), Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
• Irina Varyash — Doctor of Sciences (History), Lomonosov Moscow State University.
• Dmitrii Veber — Candidate of Sciences (History), Saint Petersburg State University.

About the Journal

Vox medii aevi is an academic journal devoted to the Middle Ages and medieval studies. We intend to create an integrated informational space for discussions among the scholars who are interested in diverse aspects of medieval history.

Vox medii aevi is a fully independent project, hence, it has no institutional limits. The Editorial Board and editorial stuff consist of people affiliated with diverse academic organizations. The journal contains research articles and reviews in Russian and English languages, translations of primary sources as well as articles in other languages, and reports of the most significant events in the world of medieval studies. Each issue is devoted to a particular aspect of the Middle Ages and we offer the scholars to participate in a discussion of a certain problem.

The high academic level of the publications is maintained through double-blind peer reviews of all papers by the members of Editorial Board as well as other acknowledged researches and specialists. Our policy involves the publication of up-to-date, original, and high-quality works regardless of the status of their authors.

The journal’s policy is based upon the principles of accessibility and transparency of information, accordingly, all articles are accepted and published free of charge. All published material are redistributed in accordance with the license Creative Commons | Attribution-NoDerivatives (this allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in its entirety, with attribution). Copyright remains in full with the authors.

The papers published in the journal are indexed in Russian Science Citation Index and put online in the digital library Cyberleninka which exports them to the international academic data bases Google Scholar, WorldCat, ROAR, BASE, OpenAIRE, EBSCO A-to-Z etc.