This paper explores comedy as a "queer pedagogical form" that subverts problematic representational tropes of queerness pervading mainstream depictions of queer experience. Articulating 'form' less as a fixed arrangement of characters, images, objects, and ideas, and more as a kind of "formation" that positions these in dynamic…

This paper addresses the role of 'emotional labour' in conducting sensitive research. As such it begins to unpick the emotional and embodied consequences of working with data which covers sensitive subjects, in this case perinatal death, and considers how such responses are likely to impact on the analysis of data. We draw upon two doctoral…

Humour, when engaged in the classroom, tends to be used as a means to hook youth into the 'real' material of school, when officially sanctioned at all. Humour can be dangerous, not-the-least in its potential to produce chaos, presenting difficulties in the rigid climate of accountability and standardisation. As we animate, humour can trouble…

In this paper, we examine the relationships between rage and humour as politicizing forces among youth climate activists. In the context of FossilFree UofT, a university-based climate action campaign, we traced the learning and political development of activists engaged in a Women's Caucus. We argue snark served the pedagogical purpose of…

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…

Generation Z (Gen Z) represents something of a quintessence for the broken promises that now seem to make up the promise of higher education. But if despair indicates the dark side of generational malaise around things like civic engagement, community, and student learning, the dark humor that has emerged out of these generations points to modes…

This paper examines the use of instructional humor in higher education settings and makes connections between the levels of student achievement in academics and the influence of appropriate instructional humor. The work of prominent researchers such as Wanzer, Frymier, and Irwin (2010), and Segrist & Hupp (2015), who postulate that…

We humans laugh often and it is not always because something is funny. We laugh in the face of the pathetic or the powerless; sometimes we laugh at our own powerlessness or pathos. In short, we laugh at both the comical and the difficult. Here I am especially interested in the laughter that is sparked by what is difficult and how that…

In this article, I explore laughter as a form of multimodal play in which adolescents' engage across contexts and in various configurations. With a few recent exceptions, a focus on unscripted play is largely missing from ongoing research and discussion about the education of adolescents. Whereas the space to play has been vitally important to the…

This paper analyses laughter in spoken academic discourse, with the aim of discovering why lecturers provoke laughter in their lectures. A further purpose of the paper is to identify episodes in British data which may differ from those in other cultural contexts where other lecturing practices prevail, and thus to inform the design of study skills…

Research has demonstrated that the use of animals in counseling provides beneficial effects to clients. This article presents literature on Animal-Assisted Therapy (AAT), and details an exploratory study that applied AAT in an adolescent anger management group. Consistent with other research, beneficial effects noted in this study included a…

The study explored the oral communication apprehension (CA) levels of first-generation college students at a 2-year case study community institution. Overall and general-context CA were measured using the Personal Report of Communication Apprehension-24 (PRCA-24). The survey was sent by e-mail to 2,040 institutionally-identified first-generation…

In a larger research study that investigated the conceptualizations, experiences, and coping behaviors of 294 male and female college students exposed to parental verbal abuse, this paper identifies and measures seven culture-specific coping behaviors in the Philippine setting, as experienced by 143 highly abused students identified in the study.…