Episode hosts: Ben Nickl and Will Visconti

About our guest on this episode:

Alan is Head of School of Art, Communication, and English at The University of Sydney and Professor in Media and Communication. He is an expert on entertainment and healthy sexual development. His most recent book reporting on sexually explicit material and its audiences is called What Do We Know About the Effects of Pornography After Fifty Years of Academic Research (Routledge, 2022). Alan talks to us about fun and entertainment, and how both feature in his current research. He also shares publication advice for early-career researchers and how to communicate to the public.

About the episode hosts:

Ben is a Senior Lecturer in The University of Sydney’s Department of Comparative Literature and Translation Studies. He works on popular technologies of mediation like humour and laughter and is the research coordinator for the Australasian Humour Studies Network. His latest book is called Moral Dimensions of Humour (Tampere University Press, open access, 2024).

Will is the coordinator of the Italian major at the University of Technology Sydney. His research focuses primarily on gender, sexuality, representation and transgression, and his first book, Beyond the Moulin Rouge: The Life and Legacy of La Goulue, was published in 2022 by the University of Virginia Press. Will’s current research projects include examinations of obscenity in Victorian literature, the material culture of nineteenth-century sex work, and the comic potential of the cancan. He is also co-editor and co-author of the forthcoming study Comedy, Humour, and Laughter: A Documentary History,1800-1920 (Routledge).

Acknowledgement of Country:

We would like to acknowledge and pay respect to the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the traditional owners and custodians of the lands on which the University of Sydney has been built, and which were taken from them without their consent, treaty or compensation. Most episodes of this podcast were recorded on this land.
This land has always been a learning space for many Aboriginal nations, and as teachers and students, and people of all kinds of origins, we can draw strength and guidance from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge, one of the oldest knowledge systems in the world.

Want to come on as a guest or co-host, or get in touch about something else? Simply email benjamin.nickl@sydney.edu.au (AHSN research coordinator and ‘Cutting Edge’ host), visit the AHSN website https://ahsnhumourstudies.org/ and follow/subscribe to us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/AHSNHumour/, YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@ahsnconference or Twitter/X @AHSN_Humour.