BOOK LAUNCH: FEMINISIM AND THE RELIGIOUS SIGNIFICANCE OF LAUGHING BODIES

This book launch offers an overview of Dr Nicole Graham’s recent book: Feminism and the Religious Significance of Laughing Bodies (Routledge, 2024); available as an e-book in King’s Library.

This book identifies the significance of the body through a feminist reconceptualisation of laughter as a means of insight. It positions itself within the emerging scholarship on religion and humour but moves away from the emphasis on humour and instead focuses on the place and role of laughter. Through a feminist reading of laughter, which is grounded in the philosophical and psychological works of William James, the book emphasises the importance of the body to offer an exploration of laughter as a means of insight. In doing so, it challenges the classificatory orders of knowledge by recognising and arguing for the value of the body in the creation of knowledge and understanding. To demonstrate the centrality of the body for insight laughter, and thus the creation of knowledge, this book engages with laughter within three thematic areas: religious experience, gendered experiences of laughter, and the ethics of laughter.

Bio

Nicole Graham is a Lecturer in Ethics and Values. She is developing an international reputation in the emerging field of humour and religion, as a researcher concerned with exploring the ethics of laughter and humour. Nicole’s research problematises the tendency in scholarship within theology and religious studies to privilege seriousness and, as a result, exclude anything that is deemed to be ‘non-serious’ from its purview. Building on this, her current research explores how comedy can offer an effective means of shifting our perspective by challenging and changing our vision of the world.