2 / I am helping a student from @usf.edu who is applying for a Fulbright graduate study grant and plans to hold the award at @durham-university.bsky.social in the UK. If you were a successful Fulbright recipient, I would be very grateful if I could ask you a few questions. Thank you so much!

A wonderful conference comes to an end. We laughed, we learned, we ranged across media, languages, periods. It was such a pleasure to listen to our participants and their groundbreaking research. Deep thanks to them, to our audience, to @durhamuniversity.bsky.social and @durhamhistory.bsky.social!

And the last speaker of our conference on “Laughter as a Political Coping Mechanism”: Aidan Jones! Aidan is presenting on “The Death Penalty, Humour, and the United States.”

A. Austin Garvey deepens our focus on Ukraine, comparing wartime Punch cartoons and contemporary Ukrainian memes in “Visual Humour in European Home Fronts: Britain and Ukraine.”

Zlata Osipova speaks first, on “We Against Them: Humor as a Unifying Force in Ukraine’s Resistance.” How does humour build solidarity and a collective opposition?

The final panel begins! “Humour in Extremis” will go from Ukraine to the United States, with presentations from A. Austin Garey, Zlata Osipova, and Aidan Jones.

Such an engaging, illuminating panel! (And we’re all still laughing.)

Simbarashe bringing the house down with popular Zimbabwean jokes from Whatsapp and Facebook (social media a release for so much pent-up expression)

Rounding off our panel, and taking us into the world of social media, Simbarashe Marowa and Ushe Kufakurinani present on “Social Media and Playful Engagements on the Political Economy: The Case of Zimbabwe”!