- Info
Don Kulick
Chair Professor of Anthropology at Hong Kong University, and Distinguished University Professor of Anthropology at Uppsala University, where he directs the Engaging Vulnerability research program.
He has published on language socialization, language death, language and sexuality, indigenous forms of Christianity, sex work and prostitution, humour, reflexive epistemology, fat studies, disability studies and animal studies. His most recent books are A Death in the Rainforest: how a language and a way of life came to an end in Papua New Guinea (Algonquin Books, 2019) and A Grammar and Dictionary of Tayap: the life and death of a Papuan language (with Angela Terill, De Gruyter, 2019).
Under what circumstances can funnily serious behavior be seriously funny?
30 June 2022
Sala del Teatro
Love on the Spectrum is an Australian reality series that follows a number of young adults on the autism spectrum, as they search for love and go on dates with others who also are on the spectrum. The show ran for two seasons, in 2019 and 2021, and was recently also made in a US version. The series was generally well-reviewed both by people who themselves are on the spectrum and by neurotypical viewers. Much of the charm of the series is that it evokes laughter, frequently at the seriousness of the people it portrays. My talk will explore how the series invites viewers to find the protagonists’ funnily serious behavior seriously funny. I will compare the laughter raised during Love on the Spectrum with laughter encouraged by British comedian Ricky Gervais’s 2012-2014 series Derek, which is about a character whom many viewers identified as being on the autism spectrum. I will discuss similarities between Love on the Spectrum and Derek but will conclude by explaining how the two series invite laughter based on very different premises.
