During this late afternoon session, Nicholas Holm will give an opening lecture on fun as a political category. As a cultural concept, fun suggests activities and aesthetic experiences with the primary purpose of entertainment and amusement: parties, games, multiple forms of intoxication and exhilaration. It is frequently figured as the antithesis of the important and worthwhile. And, yet, paradoxically the desire for fun can also exert a profound influence on the choices and practices that shape our political lives: how we figure our personal desires and values, when and how we seek out company, and our ideas of a good life.

From the success of comically-inflected political movements to novel ways of articulating oppositional perspectives, there are many forms of political practice that illustrate how fun has intruded into political calculations and movements. Challenging assumptions that fun is either inherently democratic or inherently corrosive to the serious business of politics, Holm will explore how such accounts prevent a reckoning with the multiple ways that cultural and affective motivations can shape political action and involvement. He therefore argues that these forms of ‘fun politics’ are more than just temporary aberrations, but are instead indicative of a broader recalibration of how politics can and is done.

Holm’s opening talk is followed by two mini lectures. Linda Duits, author of the forthcoming Dutch book ‘Leuk!’, will share her perspective on the norms and meanings of fun in the contemporary Netherlands. Dick Zijp will talk about the pleasure of politics in the theatre.

Nicholas Holm is an Associate Professor in Media Studies at Massey University, New Zealand. He writes on political aesthetics and popular culture and is the editor of the journal, Comedy Studies.

Linda Duits is a Lecturer at the University of Amsterdam and an independent media scholar and social scientist specialised in gender, sexuality and popular culture and the dissemination of academic knowledge to a larger audience.

Dick Zijp is an Assistant Professor in Dutch Heritage of the Performing Arts at Utrecht University. His research focuses on the politics and aesthetics of humour and comedy in the late 20th and early 21st century.

Veronika Zangl is Assistant Professor at the Department of Theatre Studies, University of Amsterdam. Her research focuses on aesthetics and dramaturgies of humour and theatre history before, during and after the Second World War.