Toward a Theory of Shenanigans in Disciplinary Literacies: Aesthetics of Humor in Social Life

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 3:45 pm - Gold 4
  In Roundtable Session: Translanguaging, Text, and the Aesthetics of Learning: Expanding the Boundaries of Disciplinary Literacies

Abstract

Disciplinary literacies engage people in knowledge-building communities but have not as readily demonstrated how to center joyful, humorous, and playful social practice. In this qualitative study we investigate a knowledge-constructing community engaged in literary analysis of the novel Dracula on a microblogging social media website. Drawing on theories of literacy as social practice and sociocultural play, we code for how community members marshalled aesthetic tools in ways that created humorous effects. Findings reveal that community members brought together disciplinary literacies and humor around the central literacy practices of shenanigans including shenanigans related to literalization, verisimilitude, literary form, and recontextualization. This study shifts understandings by showing previously unconsidered potential connections between disciplinary literacies and playful literacies that center joy.

Authors

• Scott Storm, University at Albany - SUNY

• Karis Michelle Jones, Baylor University