On the occasion of the 36th annual conference of the International Society for Humor Studies (Niterói, Brazil, 6-10 July 2026), the ISHS Special Interest Group Humor, Free Speech, and the Law is convening a panel titled Humor Studies and Free Speech Adjudication: From Theory to Practice. We welcome proposals for 20-minute papers addressing one or more of the following questions:
- How can insights from humor research help judges, lawyers, or social media regulators develop a fair and nuanced approach to judicial decisions regarding humorous expression?
- How can these insights be translated into actionable guidelines for judicial training, attorney counseling, advocacy or online content moderation? And how can this ‘translation’ exercise, in turn, open up new avenues for humor research?
- What are the challenges and opportunities offered, in this respect, by a closer dialogue between different branches of humor scholarship (interdisciplinarity), as well as between academic research and everyday judicial practice or content moderation (transdisciplinarity)?
Should you be interested in participating, please send an abstract (max. 300 words) and a short biographical note to both Dr Alberto Godioli (a.godioli@rug.nl) AND Prof. Laura Little (laura.little@temple.edu) by February 18th, 23:59 CET.
For more information on the Special Interest Group’s activities, please visit the website of ForHum: Forum for Humor and the Law, including the recent toolkit for the judiciary What’s in a Joke? Assessing Humor in Free Speech Jurisprudence (2025).