Fielding hilarity: sensing the affective intensities of comedy education and performance

ABSTRACT

This article explores the affective dimensions of comedy education and performance through workshops with undergraduate acting students in Manchester, UK. Drawing on Suzanne Langer’s process philosophy and recent research in affect studies, the authors compose complex mappings of affective intensity as it circulates through stand-up comedic performances, using new empirical methods to combine ethnographic accounts with data from electro-dermal activity (EDA) sensors worn by students. Moving beyond reductive interpretations of laughter as a function of stimulus-response, the authors assemble the concept of ‘fielding hilarity’ to better account for the atmospheric circulation of affects through comedic learning processes and performances.

KEYWORDS:

• New empiricisms
• process philosophy
• affect studies
• comedy
• drama education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Our turn to Langer’s speculative philosophy also reflects our commitment to engage substantively with the work of a female thinker whose extensive contributions to process philosophy, the philosophy of art, and philosophy of mind have been historically overlooked. We note that several of Langer’s books are currently out of print and only accessible through second-hand copies. To this end, we respond to van der Tuin’s (2017) call for a contemporary re-engagement with early twentieth-century female philosophers (including Susanne K. Langer, Hélène Metzger, and Eva Louise Young) whose work is in danger of historical erasure.

2 The participating students selected their own pseudonyms and agreed for their data to be stored, analysed, and published under this name.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Biosocial Research Lab, Manchester Metropolitan University.

Notes on contributors

David Rousell

David Rousell is Senior Lecturer in Creative Education at RMIT University and visiting Research Fellow in the Education and Social Research Institute at Manchester Metropolitan University. David’s research combines his interests in speculative philosophy, ecology, affect theory, and participatory ethnography with his background as a visual artist and arts educator.

Natalie Diddams

Natalie Diddams is a PhD candidate at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU), where she is researching the role of laughter within fourth wave feminisms. She is an Associate Lecturer at MMU and University of Warwick, and the Artistic Director of the Women’s Comedy Workshop at Theatre in the Mill in Bradford.