Beacon College’s next Salon Speaker Series presentation features Appallingly Funny: Humor and the Taboo from War Literature to Social Media.
Hosted by Dr. Leigh Rourks, the presentation will be Wednesday, Oct. 16 at 7 p.m. at the Venetian Center, located at 1 Dozier Circle in Leesburg. Tickets are free, and registration is required at https://secure.qgiv.com/for/beaconsalonseries2024-2025/event/leighrourks/.
From gallows humor to coarse jabs, humans have a habit of laughing at the most inappropriate things. While humor is cultural and generational, in every group there is someone joking through their pain, their fear, their weariness, their boredom and even their hate. And someone else who does not quite “get the joke.”
Whether it is the margins of medieval illuminated texts filled with dirty quips scrawled by bored monks or the comedic war novels and poems which refuse to treat death with the solemn respect it disserves, literature and pop culture is rich with examples of “inappropriate” jokes and “offensive” humor. In this presentation, Dr. Leigh Camacho Rourks asks what it is about the taboo that makes us want to crack a joke.
In its eighth year, the Beacon Salon Speaker Series at Beacon College is the school’s flagship community education outreach program. The Speaker Series brings in speakers, educators, authors and entertainers from Florida and around the country to educate, edify and entertain by exploring Florida history, waxing poetic, delving into popular culture and clenching the political third rail.
Channeling its ethos from the Parisian salons of the Enlightenment, the Speaker Series honors the college’s sacrosanct duty as an institution of higher learning to uplift the community in which it operates, spark engagement and sow seeds of conversation and discovery.