Are We Still Allowed to Laugh? Uses and Abuses of Humour in British Culture and Cultural Studies

A conference for MA students, PhD candidates and young researchers
organised by The Centre of Excellence for the Study of Cultural Identity (CESIC), The British Cultural Studies Centre (BCSC) of the University of Bucharest and New Europe College (NEC)

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https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81148677732?pwd=tm71BcXdPVoVVkOtcdbwzmXbkOM1ZB.1

Meeting ID: 811 4867 7732
Passcode: 503298

PROGRAM:

9.30-9.45 Conference opening

Maria-Sabina DRAGA ALEXANDRU (Conference organiser, University of Bucharest, NEC Alumna)
Dragoș IVANA (Head of the English Department, University of Bucharest, NEC Alumnus)
Valentina SANDU-DEDIU (Rector, New Europe College)

9.45-10.45 Keynote lecture 1:
Chair: Dragoș IVANA (University of Bucharest)

Valentina SANDU-DEDIU (New Europe College)
Paraphrases and postmodern parodies: from Beethoven filtered through a sieve to the music of the Levant

10.45-11.00 Coffee break

11.00-12.30
Panel 1: “Classical” laughter: humour, authority and power
Chair: Alexandra BACALU (New Europe College / University of Bucharest)

Bianca-Antonia VARZARU (MA student, University of Bucharest)
“Changing attitudes to humour and laughter in England from the 17^th to the 18^th century”

Atanasia BĂRLĂDEANU (PhD candidate, „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași; online)
“Serious laughter and the collapse of rational certainty: humour, authority, and the limits of knowledge in Gulliver’s Travels and Moby-Dick”

Jessica COPILAȘ (PhD candidate, University of Bucharest)
“Peregrin ‘Pippin’ Took as the comic relief character in The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien and its movie adaptation directed by Peter Jackson”

Ana IORDACHE (MA graduate, University of Bucharest)
“Humour and the limits of laughter: the cultural field of comedy”

12.30-13.10 Lunch break

13:10-14:25 Panel 2: Subversive laughter: between comedy and politics
Chair: Maria-Sabina DRAGA ALEXANDRU (University of Bucharest)

Diana-Noella SAVA (PhD candidate, „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași)
“Who is allowed to laugh? Ethics, exclusion and academic humour in Small World”

Andreea MECEANU (MA student, University of Bucharest)
“Calculated laughter – the use of humour in modern-day protests in Romania”

Daria TUTUNGIU (PhD candidate, University of Bucharest)
“Claiming back the power: subversive laughter and the new female monster in Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca (1938)”

14.25-14.40 Coffee break

 14.40-16.00 Panel 3: From laughter to black humour: the power of adaptation
Chair: Andreea PARIS-POPA (University of Bucharest)

Sidonia ARITON (PhD candidate, University of Bucharest)
“Aristotelian elements of comedy and their effect in Shakespeare’s Hamlet”

Umid MAMMADOV (PhD candidate, University of Bucharest)
“Pragmatics of Dark Humor in Romanian New Wave Cinema: Moartea domnului Lăzărescu (The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu) and Black Humor as a Strategy for Social Criticism”

Raluca TENEA (PhD candidate, University of Bucharest; online)
“Black humour and ethical violence in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go”

16.00-16.15 Coffee break

16.15-17.15 Keynote lecture 2:
Chair: Maria-Sabina DRAGA ALEXANDRU, University of Bucharest

Bogdan ȘTEFĂNESCU (University of Bucharest)
Irony. A Two-Edged Weapon Against Totalitarianism

17.15-17.30 Closing remarks

17.30-18.00 Wine and pretzels

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BOOK  OF  ABSTRACTS  AND  PARTICIPANTS’  BIO  NOTES

Panel 1: “Classical” laughter: humour, authority and power (Chair: Alexandra Bacalu, University of Bucharest)

1) Bianca-Antonia Vărzaru (MA student, University of Bucharest) – “Changing attitudes to humour and laughter in England from the 17^th to the 18^th century

Abstract: Humour and laughter have been the subject of various diverging theorizations over the course of history, stretching back all the way to ancient Greece, when their treatment is of a surprising kind. Laughter at this time and in the following centuries is consistently associated with either mockery, derision or scorn, all negative practices reflective of vices. However, attitudes start to change during the Enlightenment period, with the Earl of Shaftesbury and Francis Hutcheson, both of whom defend laughter and lament its confinement. This intellectual investigation abides by Quentin Skinner’s methodological delineations and employs linguistic contextualism as the primary strategy. My attempt here is to contextualize the changing attitudes concerning laughter and humour, and to uncover the wider conversation on morality and human nature that they enter. In order to do so, I will also consider Thomas Hobbes and his assessment of laughter, which Hutcheson directly criticizes in Reflections upon Laughter. Hobbes’s account of laughter as reflective of superiority comes under scrutiny a few decades later and stands as evidence for a change not only in the views upon laughter, but also upon morality and human nature.

Keywords: laughter, humour, the Enlightenment, intellectual history

Bio: Antonia Vărzaru is a philology graduate and a second year MA student in the British Cultural Studies programme. Her research interests find shape in theatre studies, with a focus on the role of spectatorship in contemporary theatre. Apart from this, she is also concerned with intellectual investigations and finds the history of ideas captivating following the course of studies at the BCS programme.

2) Atanasia Bărlădeanu (PhD candidate, „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași) – “Serious laughter and the collapse of rational certainty: humour, authority, and the limits of knowledge in Gulliver’s Travels and Moby-Dick”

Abstract: This presentation advances a comparative reading of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels and Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. It focuses on the function of humour as an instrument through which are interrogated the limits of knowledge, authority, the irrational quest for the unknown, the limits of rational thought. The two literay works share a similar use of comic strategies to expose the instability of rational certainties. Far from functioning as mere entertainment or stylistic embellishment, humour in these works operates as a disruptive epistemological force, exposing the instability of rational certainties and the fragility of systems that claim universal authority. Swift employs satirical humour and a deceptively naive narrator to parody physical rationalism and the faith in progress. By pushing rationalist principles to grotesque extremes, Swift reveals how reason, when detached from moral reflection and self-knowledge, collapses into absurdity and violence. Melville mobilizes ironic and grotesque humor to parody metaphysical rationalism, the human tendency towards surpassing what reason universally permits. Ahab’s monomaniacal quest, while tragic, is also laced with dark humour that exposes the hubris of seeking absolute meaning in an indifferent universe. Melville’s humour thus destabilizes the very notion that truth can be grasped through abstract metaphysical frameworks or heroic acts of will. The presentation argues that humour in both texts functions as a form of ‘serious laughter’, meaning a mode of unconcealing the truth, a mode of truth-telling that destabilizes authoritative discourse. Gulliver’s Travels and Moby-Dick share a comic strategy that challenges the sovereignty of reason itself.

Keywords: rationalism, Melville, Swift, satire, knowledge

Bio: Atanasia  Bărlădeanu is a PhD student in American Literature at the Doctoral School of Philology, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași. Her doctoral research focuses on the maritime imagination in aquatic literary works, with particular attention to the ocean as a space of alterity, absence, and ontological destabilization and to its influence on the sea traveller. Her thesis explores how oceanic spaces reshape subjectivity and philosophical understanding in literary texts. More broadly, her research interests include literature and philosophy, ontology and metaphysics, through which she seeks to trace productive intersections between philosophical inquiry and literary form. She is currently a Teaching Associate at Gheorghe Asachi University of Iași and Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași.

3) Jessica Copilaș (PhD candidate, University of Bucharest) – “Peregrin ‘Pippin’ Took as the comic relief character in The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien and its movie adaptation directed by Peter Jackson”

Abstract: The Lord of the Rings is one of the most famous epic fantasy sagas but while studies usually focus on the grand themes of the story, this proposal suggests a vastly different approach, taking a closer look at what makes side character Pippin Took such a good comic relief inside such an intense storytelling experience in both novel and films.

In the world of Middle Earth hobbits are seen as a peaceful people who are not usually involved in any conflict with the beings living outside of the Shire, so laughter and merriment is the norm in their region. What happens then when four hobbits get caught up in a conflict bigger than themselves and their own little world? Well, while most of the other hobbit characters remain mostly serious about the quest they get themselves involved in, Pippin Took stands out as the brave yet foolish youngster of the adventuring party.

This paper employs an interdisciplinary theoretical approach drawing on adaptation studies, transmedia studies and humour studies in order to better understand the way in which humour functions in different mediums. It applies the theories of Linda Hutcheon’s study A Theory of Adaptation, the collective study edited by Marie‑Laure Ryan and Jan‑Noël Thon, Storyworlds Across Media: Toward a Media‑Conscious Narratology and the collective studies on humour Language and Humour in the Media edited by Jan Chovanec and Isabel Ermida and The Palgrave Handbook of Humour Research edited by Elisabeth Vanderheiden and Claude‑Hélène Mayer.

The paper adopts a comparative analysis focusing on the character’s language, actions and their narrative impact, while also taking into consideration the way in which the audience reacts to the character’s humorous moments in two distinct mediums, book and film.     The aim of this paper is to research the ways in which Pippin Took takes the role of comic relief through his funny line of dialogue and the humorous situations he finds himself in and the way in which his character shines lighter heartedness over the very serious tone and it impacts the reading or viewing experience of the audiences.

Keywords: adaptation, comic relief, laughter, merriment, storyworlds

Bio: Jessica-Polixenia-Cristiana Copilaș is a 2^nd year PhD student at the Doctoral School of Literary and Cultural Studies, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Bucharest. Her doctoral thesis, Worldbuilding in Fantasy Media: A Narratological Transmedia Study, investigates how fantasy worlds are constructed, expanded, and reinterpreted through literature, film, television, and digital media. She is also an English-Romanian translator and a published short story writer with work featured in several literary magazines.

4) Ana Iordache (MA graduate, University of Bucharest) – “Humour and the limits of laughter: the cultural field of comedy”

Abstract: Comedy is often celebrated as a universal powerful conceptual tool of social and political critique, capable of critiquing authority and exposing social and existential contradictions through laughter. However, recent criticism (Friedman, Carroll, Butler) challenges this assumption by arguing that comedy is neither universal nor inherently subversive, but instead deeply structured by ideological forms and currents.

Drawing on Bourdieu’s theory of cultural production, fields and habitus, this proposal examines how similar comedic devices found in “absurdist humor”, such as repetition, non-sequitur, and narrative stasis, produce radically different meanings and effects depending on their position within distinct cultural fields. Through a comparative analysis of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and contemporary British television comedy (Toast of London) the paper demonstrates how humour that functions as existential critique within the restricted field of high modernist theatre is frequently neutralised when circulated within mass-mediated entertainment contexts.

Rather than destabilising dominant ideologies, contemporary absurd comedy often relies on shared cultural competencies that presuppose specific forms of cultural capital, thereby excluding certain audiences while offering others a form of symbolic recognition rather than critical disruption. Laughter, in this sense, operates less as resistance than as a mechanism of social differentiation and symbolic regulation.

By situating humour within the dynamics of cultural fields rather than treating it as a universal human faculty, this project reframes comedy as an ambivalent social force whose critical potential is limited and contingent upon actors and their position takings within site-specific comedic production and consumption.

Keywords: absurdism, comedy, cultural field, laughter, habitus

Bio: Ana Iordache holds two BA’s in British Cultural Studies and English Literature and an MA in Philosophy, and is currently completing a third BA in American Studies. Her academic interests lie at the intersection of cultural theory, literature, and philosophy, with a particular focus on the circulation and transformation of cultural codes. Her interest in comedy emerged during her undergraduate studies, where she began exploring the commodification of humour from existential critique to desublimation.

Panel 2: Subversive laughter: between comedy and politics (Chair: Maria-Sabina Draga Alexandru, University of Bucharest)

5) Diana-Noella Sava (PhD candidate, „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași) – “Who is allowed to laugh? Ethics, exclusion and academic humour in Small World”

Abstract: David Lodge’s Small World is widely regarded as a central work of  academic satire, in which humor serves as a key means of representing and critiquing contemporary academic life. Critical discussions have largely emphasized the novel’s exposure of institutional limitations and intellectual contradictions. Less attention, however, has been paid to the uneven accessibility of its humor: the ways in which comic understanding is distributed, restricted, or denied.  Although  the novel operates metafictionally, which grants broader access to humor, deeper, intertextual jokes remain contingent on the reader’s cultural fluency and scholarly expertise. Foregrounding who is able to “get the joke” exposes humor as a mechanism of inclusion and exclusion. Access to humor in Small World is shaped by factors such as linguistic competence and cultural or theoretical literacy, which function as filters regulating comic understanding. These filters do not merely affect comprehension, but also determine who is recognized as an insider. Therefore, attention to these mechanisms allows for critical understanding of laughter as both a form of critique and a vehicle for reinforcing institutional hierarchies. Such analysis highlights the role humor plays in mediating inclusion and recognition, offering insight into the ethics and politics of laughter within the wider landscape of academic discourse.

Keywords: academia,  humor, inclusion,  intertextuality.

Bio: Diana-Noella Sava is a PhD student at the Doctoral School of Philological Studies, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University, Iași, Romania. Her research focuses on pluralism, interculturality, and dialogue in David Lodge’s Campus Trilogy, examining how academic novels negotiate cultural differences and foster literary conversation across institutional and social contexts. While her broader work investigates narrative strategies and cross-cultural interaction, she also explores the ethical and social dynamics of humour in academic settings, including how comic understanding structures inclusion and exclusion. Her research contributes to discussions on literary pluralism, institutional critique, and the ethics of cultural participation.

6) Andreea Meceanu (MA student, University of Bucharest) – “Calculated laughter – the use of humour in modern-day protests in Romania”

Abstract: Mass protest movements in post-revolutionary Romania started in the early 90’s, with the University Square demonstrations and continued throughout the 2000’s, culminating with the 2017 protests against institutionalized corruption.

Using elements of mediated discourse analysis, such as mediational means and resemiotisation, this paper analyses the social function of humour as an instrument of protest. Its object of analysis is represented by a corpus of images (signs, posters, other artefacts) illustrating the use of humour both as a galvanising influence and a creator of identity.  The images were selected from both on line resources (archives of on line newspapers or, in the case of Roșia Montană, photographs available on Scena9 website) and from the collective photo album “#rezist. Proteste împotriva OUG 13/2017” published with the Curtea Veche Publishing Company in 2017.

It argues, on the one hand, that all protest movements in post-revolutionary Romania, although triggered by separate events, represent an intentional continuum to which humour is but one of the unifying elements, and, on the other hand, that humour itself only occurs in rather specific circumstances, a fact sometimes overlooked by many studies on subversive/political humour.

Key words: humour as criticism; humour as identity, humour as political force; humour as resistance; serious laughter,

Bio: With a BA in Philology (English and Dutch) from the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Bucharest, Andreea Meceanu became particularly interested in the complex and often unexpected ways in which identity, be it individual or collective, is being constructed, and the many narrative shifts aimed at accommodating this process. She is currently continuing my studies with the British Cultural Studies MA programme which she considers to be an excellent opportunity to learn about essential investigation avenues, relevant to her interests, and also, to gain a solid knowledge of the methodological instruments essential to academic research.

7) Daria Tutungiu (PhD candidate, University of Bucharest) – “Claiming back the power: subversive laughter and the new female monster in Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca (1938)”

Abstract: Laughter has always been employed as a tool of resistance, serving as a micro-act of aggression against hegemonic systems of power. Resistant humour is, in itself, an act of identity performance that attempts at dismantling figures of authority. I find the study of laughter as a practice of resistance underexplored territory in gothic and monster literary studies, hence my efforts to reflect on the intriguing functions of laughter within the monstrous construction of du Maurier’s Rebecca (1938). Addressing questions of rebellion, Othering, and gender politics, the scope of my present case study is to showcase the two spheres in which laughter operates in Victorian society: laughter as a strategy of political control and laughter as defiance of morality and gender roles. In the novel, laughter helps the monstrous figure – Rebecca – reclaim agency over her body and resist social silencing. Her blasphemous laughter at Maxim’s inability to control her abnormal urges and sexual deviance works as an indicator of the shifting paradigms of the century, highlighting the birth of a new “monstrous” woman. Henceforth, Rebecca’s parodic laughter destabilizes the grand narratives of patriarchal power, cementing a new understanding of the female monster. As such, this paper questions the underlying mechanisms of laughter in gendered societies by analysing its dual functions in the construction of the monstrous feminine.

Keywords: subversive laughter; resistant humour; gothic fiction; monstrous identities; the female monster.

Bio: Daria Tutungiu is currently a first-year doctoral student at the University of Bucharest’s Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures. She is writing my PhD thesis on contemporary film adaptations of classic gothic novels in both the British and American cultural spheres, delving into questions of monstrosity, Othering, and identity politics through the lens of Monster Studies and Adaptation Studies. Her scholarly concerns primarily deal with the intersection between modern cinematography and classic gothic literature, with particular focus on subject positionality, marginalization, and the monstrous Other. Hence, her research projects strive to tackle the underlying socio-cultural dimensions carried by the adaptation of the monster figure in film and literature. She has participated in several student conferences, resulting in a few forthcoming  articles.

Panel 3: From laughter to black humour: the power of adaptation (Chair: Andreea Paris-Popa, University of Bucharest)

8) Sidonia Ariton (PhD candidate, University of Bucharest) – “Aristotelian elements of comedy and their effect in Shakespeare’s Hamlet”

Abstract: Shakespeare’s play on Hamlet, the deeply discontented prince of Denmark, was never meant to be a comedy by its playwright. Even its title, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, helps everybody understand from the very beginning that the audience is not present to be amused, like in the case of The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, as well. However, Susan Snyder, in her work The Comic Matrix in Shakespeare’s Tragedies, emphasises that the Bard first wrote his comedies and only later on during his occupation as a playwright, dealt with tragedies, Snyder arguing that his mastery of comedies influenced the way he conceived his tragedies. Therefore my essay aims at establishing Aristotelian comic structures and/or elements in Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark and how they work towards shaping the tragic characters and events in the play.

Keywords: Aristotelian comedy, character, comic structures, event, tragedy

Bio: Sidonia Ariton is a graduate of the Faculty of Letters of the University of Bucharest and of the British Cultural Studies M. A. programme of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures (University of Bucharest). She is currently a PhD candidate in the Doctoral School of Literary and Cultural Studies, University of Bucharest, working on Peter Brook’s Two Princes, Hamlet and Arjuna, at Present. She has participated in several conferences and published articles such as “Peter Brook’s Interculturalism with His Two Princes, Hamlet and Arjuna, on Stage and One Universal Dilema: To Kill or Not to Kill” (JSRLL – Journal of Student Research in Languages and Literatures, 2022, the West University of Timișoara). Her article “Shakespeare in India – Who’s the Alien” is forthcoming in the proceedings of BCS-NEC conferences.

9) Umid Mammadov (PhD candidate, University of Bucharest) – “Pragmatics of Dark Humor in Romanian New Wave Cinema: Moartea domnului Lăzărescu (The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu) and Black Humor as a Strategy for Social Criticism”

Abstract: This paper carries out an investigation of the mechanisms of the dark humor used in the well-known Romanian film Moartea domnului Lăzărescu (The Death of Mr. Lazarescu), a milestone film of the Romanian New Wave, directed by Cristi Puiu, from the perspective of pragmatics. Considering Gricean Cooperative Principles as a key framework, the study examines how black humor arises from the systematic violations of the Gricean Maxims, namely Quality, Quantity, Manner, and Relation, which criticize corruption, dehumanization of the patients, and social apathy in the Romanian healthcare system. Methodologically, the study applies a mixed pragmatic approach, by combining qualitative discourse analysis for the interpretation of the dark humor instances, and quantitative mapping for emphasizing the number of the Gricean Maxims violation and distribution of the linguistic tools used for dark humor generation. The analysis examines selected dialogues between the protagonist and doctors as well as some dialogues with his neighbors, where bureaucratic and ironic language, incongruity, sarcasm, underestimation, exaggeration, satire, etc., are utilized as key tools to generate dark humor instances that can be interpreted as tragic and comic, focusing on transmitting criticism and radicalization of the institutional indifference and dehumanization.  This study contributes to the dark humor studies in linguistics, demonstrating how dark humor can function as a reflection mechanism for the society by criticizing grave aspects of the Romanian society.

Keywords: dark humor; pragmatics; Gricean maxims; Romanian New Wave; cinematic discourse

Bio: Umid Mammadov is currently a PhD student at the University of Bucharest, within the Doctoral School of Languages and Cultural Identities. Mammadov’s research focuses on the complex and often controversial domain of dark humor, exploring its cultural significance, linguistic expression, and social impact across different contexts.

10) Raluca Tenea (PhD candidate, University of Bucharest) – “Black humour and ethical violence in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go”

Abstract: This presentation aims to draw attention to a less discussed characteristic of Kazuo Ishiguro’s dystopian fiction, that of black humor. Never Let Me Go (2005) has been analyzed from multiple perspectives, most ones delving into themes of memory, individuality and oppression; however, I believe the use of dark humor in this novel can lead one to a better understanding of the aforementioned themes by analyzing the British cultural strategies of normalizing violence and oppression.

Written in first person, the novel describes the journey of Kathy H., one of the many organ donors from Hailsham, a British fictional institution whose purpose is to raise and take care of donors until they come of age and begin the process of sacrificing their lives for the “normal” people. This paper seeks to provide relevant critical theory and an in-depth analysis regarding the traditional use of British humor that intertwines with cultural understanding, irony and emotional restraint.

Dark humor is present throughout the whole novel, even in its subtlety; the absurd normalization of the politics and oppression by the whole population, including the clones, the acceptance of their inevitable sacrifice and the ignorance at the same time of the real world that the donors posses construct one of the most notable aspects of the unique type of humor used by Ishiguro.

Using critical theory written by Sigmund Freud and Lisa Colletta from their Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (1960) and Dark Humour and Social Satire in the Modern British Novel: Triumph of Narcissism (2003), this paper will implement theoretical frames of cultural studies in the analysis of British dark humor, and literary studies in the research regarding the novel’s use of humor as social discipline through choices of words and literary devices. Ultimately, this analysis will bring a heightened awareness upon Britishness performed through humor specifically in Never Let Me Go by studying the employment of black humor as tonal relief and literary strategy.

Keywords: black humor, Britishness, dystopia, ethical violence, institutional violence

Bio: Raluca Tenea is a PhD student in the Doctoral School of Literary and Cultural Studies, University of Bucharest, working on a thesis provisionally titled Haunted Connections and Adaptations: Memory, Identity and Nostalgia Across Transnational Japanese Literature and Western Film. Her previous work consists of explorations of queer aesthetics in British film. She has participated in several student conferences, resulting in a few forthcoming articles.