[ecrea] Call for Proposals: TV Comedy Symposium

http://sites.nd.edu/tvcomedy2017/

English-language television comedy is circulating transnationally more 
than ever before, as Americans watch the Irish comedy /Moone Boy /on 
Hulu and British comedy panel shows like /Have I Got News For You/ on 
YouTube; Netflix brings the BBC’s /Miranda /and RTE imports CBS’s /2 
Broke Girls/ to Irish shores; the most popular sitcom on British 
television, /Mrs. Brown’s Boys/, is created by an Irish performer; 
Australia’s /Please Like Me/ defied low ratings at home and rode 
overseas acclaim all the way to an International Emmy Award nomination; 
and the most critically acclaimed sitcom airing transatlantically is the 
US-UK co-production /Catastrophe/, which takes place in London and 
features American and Irish comedians as its lead performers. However, 
as Brett Mills and Erica Horton write, “Despite globalization and 
complex international circuits of culture the significance of nation 
remains central to television in terms of content, production, and 
purpose” (/Creativity in the British Television Comedy Industry/, 
Routledge 2017, 3). This statement resonates more for comedy than other 
television genres given that humor is often steeped in transgressions of 
nationally defined social norms and satire draws upon knowledge of 
culturally specific identities and politically relevant topics. So where 
do national cultures of English-language television comedy stand in this 
era of burgeoning transnational flows?

The University of Notre Dame’s London Global Gateway 
<https://international.nd.edu/global-gateways/london/> will host a 
symposium on this topic during the Fall 2017 semester. Accordingly, the 
symposium’s organizers invite proposals for 20-minute presentations on 
national cultures of television comedy within and across such countries 
as the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, Australia, and Canada. 
Questions symposium papers could address include: To what extent are 
national origins and identities still embedded within the DNA of 
television comedy emerging from these individual countries? What 
qualities define the distinctive essence of American humor, British 
humour, and greann Éireannach on television today? What comedic and 
narrative elements find resonance transnationally, and what are 
audiences responding to in television comedies that originate from 
countries other than their own? How might issues of race, gender, class, 
and nationality either resonate or recede as a series circulates 
internationally? In an era when American remakes like /The Office/, 
/Getting On/, and /Veep/ have found appreciative audiences, is even the 
notoriously challenging U.S.-to-U.K. adaptation process getting easier? 
How do TV comedies from smaller-market countries carve out a presence in 
dominant markets like the U.S. and U.K.? How have changing modes of 
production, methods of distribution, and economic climates affected 
television comedy content in these countries? What aesthetic, cultural, 
political, and industrial catalysts are most relevant to all of these 
developments?

The symposium will take place at the University of Notre Dame’s Global 
Gateway academic center in London on November 16 and 17. The event is 
co-sponsored by the School of English, Drama & Film at University 
College Dublin and the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre at 
the University of Notre Dame and co-organized by Christine Becker and 
Jorie Lagerwey. A university press-published collection is expected to 
emerge from this gathering. Funds to offset travel and lodging may be 
available but cannot be guaranteed until a later date.

To be considered for participation in the symposium, please submit a 
250-word abstract appropriate for a 20-minute presentation plus a 
150-word biography to Christine Becker at (cbecker1 /at/ nd.edu) 
<mailto:(cbecker1 /at/ nd.edu)> no later than August 1, 2017. Please direct any 
questions about the symposium to this email address ((cbecker1 /at/ nd.edu)) as 
well.


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