Home“Gelan”. Laughing, making laugh, theorizing laughter

“Gelan”. Laughing, making laugh, theorizing laughter

« Gelan ». Rire, faire rire, penser le rire

Comicality and playfulness between words, concepts, and practices in ancient texts

Mots, concepts et pratiques du comique et du ludique dans les textes antiques

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Published on Monday, September 27, 2021

Abstract

The “funny”, “humorous”, “ironic”, and “playful” dimensions of ancient works have often been the focus of modern scholarship and the subject of several published volumes and articles. Nevertheless, there have been no comprehensive studies that explore both the terms themselves and how to make these useful for the evaluation of ancient literature and art in a way that examines their heuristic value, with the goal of arriving at more objective interpretations. Since defining the comic and the playful remains a fundamental problem, conceptual tools are still needed so as to better identify and appreciate content of this kind in ancient works. The aim of this thematic dossier of Methodos is to refine the tools and methods that would permit such analyses.

Announcement

Guest editors

Guest Editors Louise Bouly de Lesdain, Anne de Cremoux and Valentin Decloquement

Argument

Guest Editors Louise Bouly de Lesdain, Anne de Cremoux and Valentin Decloquement invite submission of papers to be published in  “Gelan. Laughing, making laugh, theorizing laughter: comicality and playfulness between words, concepts, and practices in ancient texts”, the forthcoming issue of Methodos, the online review of the research unit “Savoirs, Textes, Langage” (UMR 8163 – CNRS, Université de Lille).

The “funny”, “humorous”, “ironic”, and “playful” dimensions of ancient works have often been the focus of modern scholarship and the subject of several published volumes and articles. Nevertheless, there have been no comprehensive studies that explore both the terms themselves and how to make these useful for the evaluation of ancient literature and art in a way that examines their heuristic value, with the goal of arriving at more objective interpretations. Since defining the comic and the playful remains a fundamental problem, conceptual tools are still needed so as to better identify and appreciate content of this kind in ancient works.

The aim of this thematic dossier is to refine the tools and methods that would permit such analyses. We are seeking two kinds of contributions:

1) Papers that adopt a historical and epistemological perspective, either to contrast and juxtapose the conception(s) of comicality, funniness, and playfulness in antiquity with modern terminology and definitions, or to compare such concepts and terminologies across modern languages. In both cases, the aim is to examine whether interpretative tools and terminology from one geographical setting and/or one historical period can be applied to texts and artefacts from another context.

2) More practically oriented papers that focus on specific ancient works and thoroughly examine which criteria determine whether an ancient text or any artistic work can be regarded as funny, comical, playful, etc., and whether the concepts used for analysis are relevant.

This multidisciplinary dossier encourages papers from the vantage point of literary studies and philology, as well as linguistics, philosophy, art history and history.

Submission guidelines

Paper proposals (2500 characters) are to be sent electronically, in Word and PDF formats, to Leone Gazziero (leone.gazziero@univ-lille.fr) and Anne Dourlens (anne.dourlens@univ-lille.fr).

Deadline : 20 january 2022

Accepted languages: French, German, Italian, English.

Once a proposal has been accepted, the authors will send their text in accordance with the guidelines described under « Conditions de publication et instructions aux auteurs » on the review’s website.

Deadline: 20 may 2022


Date(s)

  • Thursday, January 20, 2022

Keywords

  • littérature, philologie, linguistique, philosophie, Antiquité

Contact(s)

  • Anne de Cremoux
    courriel : anne [dot] de-cremoux [at] univ-lille [dot] fr
  • Leone Gazziero
    courriel : leone [dot] gazziero [at] univ-lille [dot] fr

Information source

  • Anne Dourlens
    courriel : anne [dot] dourlens [at] univ-lille [dot] fr

License

CC0-1.0 This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.

To cite this announcement

« “Gelan”. Laughing, making laugh, theorizing laughter », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Monday, September 27, 2021, https://doi.org/10.58079/1795

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