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Session Submission Summary

Humour As Topic, Discourse and Method For STS

Thu, September 5, 8:00 to 9:30am, Sheraton New Orleans Hotel, Floor: Four, Gallier A

Abstract

Common to many social science disciplines, the topic of humour and comedy has received relatively little attention within STS, though there has been increasing acknowledgement that attending to joking and humour offers a powerful lens onto social worlds and practices. As a mode of speech and thought, humour would appear to have the power to disrupt science, as a moment of (dis)juncture between the serious and the playful, highlighting the incongruous and questioning the taken-for-granted. Similarly, interest in humour in science communication and public engagement suggests a belief that humour, as a form of communication, might provide the means to engage and enthuse the public, as means to transform the public, though undercut by a concern that science might become laughable. Humour, particularly irony, has also been suggested by Steve Woolgar as a potent way of doing STS, employing (derisive) laughter as a way to challenge the narratives and practices of science, using laughter to show that it could be otherwise, though Woolgar’s view has been sharply critiqued by Isabelle Stengers, who questions how far an ironic critique can avoid becoming defined and submerged in terms of the system it seeks to counter. As a nascent topic within STS, the panel encourages submissions from a wide range of perspectives and foci. Papers could consider, for example, case studies of humour within scientific cultures, humour as a topic of discourse, the politics and meta-discourses of humour in relation to science, or humour as a method or methodology of science and STS.

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