Program > Day 1 - Thursday 7 November

DAY 1: Thursday, 7 November

(All events take place in MRSH Lecture Hall and on Zoom unless otherwise noted)

9:45: Registration, welcome and refreshments

10-10:30: Conference opening

Punch’s Pocket Book Archive Project: A brief introduction (Françoise Baillet, Université de Caen Normandie)

10:40-12: Keynote presentation: Dr Bob Nicholson (Edge Hill University, UK)

“Pickings From Punch: Reprinting Humour in the Transnational Press”

When Punch appeared on newsstands each Wednesday, content-hungry editors set about pillaging its pages in search of jokes to reprint. Some repackaged them in columns with headers like 'Jokes of the Day' or 'Pickings from Punch', while others squeezed stand-alone gags into random spots as column fillers. In Britain, the first reprints appeared in the evening press within hours, but it was best-selling weekly papers that provided Punch's biggest secondary readership, and placed its humour in front of an audience far exceeding those who read the paper directly. After this initial feast, clippings from Punch continued to circulate around the anglophone press, cropping up months later in Sydney, Cape Town, or New York. Some jokes even crossed linguistic borders and appeared in translation in France, Germany, any other countries. This paper explores the reprinting of Punch's humour as part of a broader theorisation of the forces that enabled and impeded the transnational circulation of humour during the nineteenth century. It also reflects on how digitisation has enabled us to trace Punch's reach across textual, linguistic, and national boundaries.

Chair: Françoise Baillet

12:00-13:30: Lunch (MRSH)

Provided for conference presenters

13:30-14:50 – Panel 1: Mockery as Method?

Chris Woodyard (Independent scholar) – “’I never before shaved a live man, sir.’: Grim Humor in the Nineteenth-Century United States Press”

Susie Beckham (University of York) – “Laughing at the Pre-Raphaelites: John Burley Waring’s Pre-Raffaelleite Chorus (1857)”

Elliott Andrews (University of Leicester) – “Humorous Procrastinators: Linley Sambourne’s Illustrated Letters”

Chair: Bethany Qualls (Université de Caen Normandie)

14:50-15:10: Break

15:15-17:00: Pocket Book Making Workshop

A Brief History of Pocket Books with DIY Bookbinding Session

This interactive session with Bethany Qualls will first cover a brief history of pocketbooks and other pocket-sized printed materials (almanacs, calendars, commonplace books, memorandum/notebooks, directories, and other small compendiums of useful information one might want to have at hand) from the early-modern period through today. Though often seen as ephemeral, we find versions of these books today as both bound and digital technologies carried in our own pockets.

After a live demonstration of the process, participants will then make their own small, hand-bound pocketbooks to use as they see fit. Materials, including blank calendar grids from Punch’s Pocket Book, will be provided for those attending in person, but please feel free to bring old magazines, other thick papers (as long as you can punch a hole through it with a thumbtack), and/or other decorating materials (markers, stickers, stamps, etc.) you’d like to add to your creation or share with others.

Remote participants are welcome to join via zoom. If you want to create your own pocketbooks with us, try and have the following supplies on hand:

• • paper
  • paper cutter or x-acto blade
  • cutting mat
  • ruler
  • thumbtack (or awl if you have one)
  • 2-4 binder clips
  • sewing needle
  • thread

You’ll leave this session with at least one small (A6 or A7) sized hand-bound book, a handout outlining the process, and a better understanding of book history terms like signature and quarto. You’ll also gain a deeper appreciation of how to fold and bind pages together, a process that was basically unchanged the days of Gutenberg until the wide-spread mechanization of printing and binding in the late 1800s.

Location: SH 027 and online via zoom

19:30-    : Conference dinner

Location: Le Mancel