Keynote Presentation: SAR Humanities Festival: Humor and the Humanities

An Evening of Stories Celebrating Courage, Resilience, and Comedy

Shelly C. Lowe (Navajo), PhD – President, Institute of American Indian Arts
Patricia N. Limerick – Professor of History, University of Colorado at Boulder

Given that many dimensions of human life can fall far beyond the reach of merriment, some frequently cited works in the Humanities evoke an atmosphere of the somber and solemn. But, in the everyday practice of the Humanities, human beings have stuck with an unbreakable habit of immersing themselves in stories infused with wit, hilarity, and absurdity, and this habit has positioned people to move forward in times of difficulty. Accordingly, the robust alliance between the Humanities and Humor will serve as the foundation of this program. Recounting some of their favorite stories, the speakers will celebrate the forces unleashed when Humor and the Humanities team up to confirm courage and replenish resilience. As the Standing Rock Sioux writer, thinker, and activist Vine Deloria, Jr. put it in Custer Died for Your Sins in 1969:

“When a people can laugh at themselves and laugh at others and hold all aspects of life together without letting anyone drive them to extremes, then it seems to me that that people can survive.”