Friday, February 9, 9am-12noon, OSU Colloquia Room [18th Avenue Library, Rm. 340], 175 W. 18th Ave.

The Center for the Study of Religion and Melton Center for Jewish Studies will present a symposium on religious humor and laughter. The day will consist of two panel discussions with two presenters exploring the following questions: Why is it important for scholars to attend to humor and laughter, and, if it’s often been neglected or overlooked, why is that the case? What are the methodological or conceptual challenges that attend the study of religious humor? Are there broader issues or questions in the study of religion on which humor or laughter helps shine a particularly useful light? What does humor reveal about how communities and individuals negotiate boundaries of religious and ethnic identity? What, if anything, do we gain by engaging religious humor comparatively and cross-culturally?

The presenters will include:

Jennifer Caplan: “What’s Jewish about Jewish Humor?” Caplan is an associate professor and The Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati Chair in Judaic Studies at the University of Cincinnati. She is an expert on American religion and popular culture and her first book, Funny, You Don’t Look Funny: Judaism and Humor from the Silent Generation to Millennials was published in 2023 by Wayne State University Press.

Samah Choudhury: “Thinking About Religion and Race by Taking Humor Seriously.” Choudhury is an assistant professor in the department of Philosophy and Religion at Ithaca College where she teaches courses on religion, race, pop culture, and Islam. She is at work on her first book, American Muslim Humor and the Politics of Secularity, which examines how Muslims have articulated themselves through the medium of standup comedy in the U.S., and the ways that Islam gains recognition or becomes obscured under the specter and demands of U.S. multicultural secularism. She is a research fellow this year with the University of Chicago’s Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity.

Melissa Anne-Marie Curley: “Rain-Making and Piss-Taking: Bawdy Humor in a Few Buddhist Stories.” Curley is an associate professor in the Department of Comparative Studies at The Ohio State University. Her first book, Pure Land, Real World: Modern Buddhism, Japanese Leftists, and the Utopian Imagination was published in 2017 by the University of Hawai’i Press. Her current projects revolve around modern Buddhist constructions of the body and self.

Hannibal Hamlin: “The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost walk into a bar . . .: Does Christianity Have a Sense of Humor?” Hamlin is a Professor of English at The Ohio State University, an expert on early modern English literature.

This event is free and open to the public.

Hosted by OSU Center for the Study of Religion.