Friday, October 14, 10:30 am–12:30 pm
Tulsa North
This live event will not be recorded.
Chair: Ian Brodie (Cape Breton University)
10:30 am
“¡Estoy embarazada … and it’s the bishop’s fault!": Appropriate Incongruities and Latter-Day Saint Missionary Language-Learning Narratives and Pranks
Eric A. Eliason (Brigham Young University)
11:00 am
Talking Back: An Analysis of Parrot Jokes
Greg Kelley (University of Guelph-Humber)
11:30 am
When Is a Joke? Insights from Legend Scholarship for the Study of Stand-Up Comedy Repertoire Development
Ian Brodie (Cape Breton University)
12:00 pm
Incongruous, Approrpriate, Spurious
Elliott Oring (California State University, Los Angeles, emeritus)
This session explores a wide variety of folk humor from an equally diverse set of folkgroups and concludes with a consideration of a prevalent analytic descriptor of how folk humor works. The first three presenters examine, in turn: Jokes by and about parrots through time and across cultures, Mormon missionaries’ surprisingly ribald pranks and anecdotes, and the “half-life” of humorous narratives in standup comedy. Finally, Elliott Oring will consider the strengths, limitations, and future prospects of his long-influential concept of “appropriate incongruity” to folk humor study going forward.