"Humor might be said to be one of the conditions for taking up a critical position with respect to what passes for everyday life." Simon Critchley (2002)

Humor and joke analysis are becoming important new tools for art historical scholarship, useful for addressing the wide array of art production that employs jokes, satire, and irony as a means of critique. We seek proposals for papers that examine humor tactics within the visual arts, ranging from pranks, parodies, puns, and paradoxes to other forms of wit, as found in work ranging from nineteenth-century caricature, to Duchamp, to contemporary activists like the Stuckists or Yes Men. Papers should consider the use of humor explicitly as a critical tactic, moving beyond a simple explanation of the joke to examine the larger strategies often entailed. We are also interested in papers that explore the ethical dimensions of intentional deception and derision; for example, when does a prank transition from a send-up to a slur?

Proposals should take the form of a 300-word abstract, to be submitted with a CV by October 28, 2011. Participants will be notified by November 8th.

The conference papers should last no more than 20 minutes, which represents a ten-page paper, double-spaced in 12 point type with normal margins. Papers will be due to the organizers by February 24th.

Please e-mail proposals to: Sarah Archino: sarchino@gc.cuny.edu and Monica Steinberg: msteinberg@gc.cuny.edu