Humour and Religion in Medieval and (Early) Modern Literature

17 mai 2025

Kilian Schindler

Dr. Honor Jackson, UNIFR

Dr. Kilian Schindler, UNIFR

Prof. Adrian Streete, University of Glasgow

This proposed CUSO event would explore the ways in which religion and humour – frequently supposed to be incompatible – interact in literature. Its aim is to highlight the complexity of the interplay of religion and humour and its various religious and political functions, as well as to stimulate methodological reflections on the ways in which such writing, by abandoning strictly homiletic or doctrinal purposes, creates connections between religion and a wide variety of other critical concerns central to literary studies, such as sex and gender, or the body and the senses. This event is thus also meant to appeal to participants who may not primarily work on religion but whose research is concerned with cultural contexts in which religion still plays a pervasive role, as is particularly, but not exclusively, the case in pre-modern literature. We plan to invite Prof. Adrian Streete, Professor of Early Modern English Literature and Religion at the University of Glasgow, to give a lecture on the functions of humour in early modern literature on the basis of his current book project on radical religion and laughter in early modern literary culture. We would also invite him to conduct a workshop with the aim of discussing (and testing on concrete texts) theoretical concepts and methodological tools that are central to any analysis of literary uses of humour and its role in literary representations of religion beyond the early modern period. Finally, this workshop is also intended to provide an opportunity to up to three doctoral students to present papers on their current research and to receive feedback from Prof. Streete, the organisers, and their peers. Rough schedule: 9.30 – Coffee 10.00 – Welcome 10.15 – 11.30 – Workshop on cross-period research 11.30 – 11.50 – Coffee break 11.50 – 13.00 – Lecture and Q&A 13.00 – 14.30 – Lunch 14.30 – 16.00 – Doctoral student papers /roundtable (depending on the number of presen

UNIFR

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