Keynote by Oliver Double (University of Kent) on Thursday, November 13, 2025, 6PM

In comic figures such as clowns, amateurs, or spinsters, in the masks of the commedia dell’arte or in the pies thrown in slapstick, as well as in theatre, film, or text – comedy always manifests itself through bodies and things. The first annual conference of the network Comic Literacies – Kulturtechniken des Komischen/Cultural Techniques of Comedy thus explores perspectives on the material dimensions of comedy and the comic. Discussing and comparing case studies from different contexts and disciplinary backgrounds, we aim to outline comic phenomena as constituted via cultural techniques that are shaped by the materiality of various cultural, corporeal, and media practices. In doing so, the conference draws special attention to acts of figuration: How can we conceptualize the staging of comic bodies and things as matters of design and formation?

In various ways, Cultural Studies have addressed how comedy is performed with and through bodies and things. Much like social interactions that succeed not through rational decision-making but through the multisensory and material interplay of bodies and things, comedy emerges through pre-reflective, embodied doing in actu. Expanding on existing research, the conference focuses on the mediating functions of material corporeality and objecthood. It aims to respond to recent calls for a closer examination of comedy’s tacit knowledge, i.e., the existence or lack of practically embodied sensory, experiential, and detail-oriented knowledge in the material production and figuration of comic bodies and things.

The conference explores the mediating function of materialities with regard to comic effects by asking: How can we reconstruct acts of figuration in the production of comic bodies and things? How does comedy as a cultural technique draw on historically situated materialities? What do materialities (fail to) express or process? How do bodies and things, by way of their quantity or quality, make themselves visible, audible, or tangible in comic ways? How do comic figurations produce epistemological uncertainty, tipping points or loss of control? And how can focusing on comedy’s praxeological knowledge bring forth new approaches to comedy?

The conference includes a keynote by Oliver Double as well as the artistic performance SUBJOYRIDE by Boglárka Börcsök & Andreas Bolm at PACT Zollverein (Performing Arts Choreographisches Zentrum NRW Tanzlandschaft Ruhr).

Please see the complete programme for further information. You can also check out the call for papers and the network’s website.