Summer closing event
Reading Workshop
Laughter in Literature with Dr Andrew Dean

In this two-hour workshop, we will discuss laughter in literature, from Miguel de Cervantes to Thomas Carlyle to contemporary New Zealand poet Hera Lindsay Bird.

Andrew Dean will select a number of short extracts, which will provide the starting point for the session. Together, we will ask: how might a literary history of laughter help us to understand the value of art? What is the place of pleasure in literary appreciation? And how might laughter relate to politics and morality?

8 places | Free
Booking essential
Readings available to those who book

Dr Andrew Dean is currently a Junior Research Fellow in the Institute for Advanced Research at University College London. He has studied at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand and at the University of Oxford. Some of Andrew’s work has explored how humour may disturb serious-minded claims about historical experience and appropriate kinds of remembering. As part of his current fellowship, Andrew has been organising seminars and events that explore the institutions, cultures, histories, and psychologies of laughter.