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Comic Relief: Is Humour Necessarily Funny?
Program Code:
390
Date:
Saturday, August 4, 2007
Time:
9:00 AM to 9:50 AM
EST
SPEAKER
(S):
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about each speaker.
Jorgen Gaare. Born 1955. Book editor. Degrees in philosophy, anthropology and history of ideas. Production: 4 children and 4 books, among them "Harry Potter – a Philosophical Wizard".
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Oystein Sjaastad. Born 1945. Senior lecturer at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Oslo. Production: 2 children and 6 books, among them "Harry Potter – a Philosophical Wizard".
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Description
"You see, the thing that really finishes a Boggart is laughter." This shape-shifting, terrifying being knows the secret fears of each and everyone. Emerging as a giant spider or as professor Snape or whatever the beholder fears the most, the only defence is to make it appear comical – and spelling it out: Ridiculous! Highly amusing in itself, professor Lupin's Boggart lesson gives a deep understanding of the workings of humour, of how it by reframing a distressful situation may dissolve it. In Potter humour really works. Rawling's "comic relief" shows the way: What would the Boggart appear as, confronted with a tyrant, an oppressor, a fanatic? As humour! Norwegian philosophers Øystein Sjaastad and Jørgen Gaare will share some perspectives from their book on Potter and Philosophy, for instance how understanding and humour are strikingly similar. Both imply a sudden, unexpected bridging of hitherto unrelated fields. Like Potter and philosophy.