AustLit

'Writing on ‘The New Zealand Sense of Humour’ in his posthumously published book, Tinkering, John Clarke describes the comic temperament of his country of birth as ‘laconic, under-stated and self-deprecating’ (2017, 31). In evoking the laconic as a marker of national comic character, Clarke is far from alone: the term is frequently used as an easy, ready-to-hand account of the comic characteristics of both Clarke’s native New Zealand and Australia, where he found his later comic success. Yet the ease with which the term is conjured belies the complexity of the comic forms to which it refers. Literally, ‘laconic’ refers to the use of few words, but it is not always clear how this definition informs laconic humour. This article explores how the laconic might be understood by examining John Clarke’s comedy with particular reference to his Fred Dagg persona. It argues that Dagg’s presentation of the laconic can be productively understood in opposition to Sianne Ngai’s account of the ‘zany’. This comparison brings to light the affective elements of the laconic, seen as character-based comedy premised on the absence of care or attention. Understood through this lens, Dagg’s laconic comedy appears as comic engagement with the emotional repression and affective apathy that has historically been associated with New Zealand provincial communities.'

Source: Abstract.

'This edited collection explores the relationships between humans and nature at a time when the traditional sense of separation between human cultures and a natural wilderness is being eroded. The ‘Anthropocene,’ whose literal translation is the ‘Age of Man,’ is one way of marking these planetary changes to the Earth system. Global climate change and rising sea levels are two prominent examples of how nature can no longer be simply thought of as something outside and removed from humans (and vice versa).

'This collection applies the concepts of ecology and entanglement to address pressing political, social, and cultural issues surrounding human relationships with the nonhuman world in terms of ‘working with nature.’ It asks, are there more or less preferable ways of working with nature? What forms and practices might this work take and how do we distinguish between them? Is the idea of ‘nature’ even sufficient to approach such questions, or do we need to reconsider using the term nature in favour of terms such as environments, ecologies or the broad notion of the non-human world? How might we forge perspectives and enact practices which build resilience and community across species and spaces, constructing relationships with nonhumans which go beyond discourses of pollution, degradation and destruction? Bringing together a range of contributors from across multiple academic disciplines, activists and artists, this book examines how these questions might help us understand and assess the different ways in which humans transform, engage and interact with the nonhuman world.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.