Sponsored by: The Royal Institute of Philosophy and The University of Kent
Can we joke about anything? How useful is comedy to protest? What is it to ‘punch up’ and ‘punch down’? Is there a cancel culture in comedy, and what does that even mean?
Comedians meet Philosophers in a meeting of minds live on stage!
Fri 19 – Sat 20 May 2023
Performances! Talks and Debates! Live Q&A Panels! Tours of Kent’s Stand-Up Comedy Archive!
Analysing comedy is said to be like dissecting a frog: nobody cares and the frog dies.
“This ideas festival will be a great opportunity to hear comedians and philosophers get together to talk about comedy and free speech, the role of persona in performance and much more. It’ll be a lot of fun. My only worry is that the philosophers will try too hard to be funny and fall flat on their face. Although that would be funny in itself.” – Organiser, Simon Kirchin
Open to all!
Including:
- Steve Bell (The Guardian)
- Robin Ince (R4’s Infinite Monkey Cage)
- Julian Baggini (philosopher and writer)
- Rosie Wilby (podcaster and author of The Breakup Monologues)
- Julian Baggini – writer and broadcaster
- Julian Dodd – University of Leeds
- Simon Kirchin – University of Kent
- Emily McTernan – University College, London
- Lucy O’Brien – University College, London
- Rebecca Roache – Royal Hollway, London
…and many more comedians and philosophers