The primary focus of this online conference, organized by the Journal of Arabic and World Literature at Andromeda Publishing and Academic Services (London, UK) is on humor and the tricksters as they are treated in Middle Eastern literatures in different periods. The image of the trickster in world culture is multifaceted, morally ambiguous but fully human. It is fixed and described not only on the material of ancient mythologies and folk epics, but also in medieval and modern literature. The legendary Juha, as the embodiment of the characteristic trickster, is the most popular folk hero in the Middle East, Central Asia, the Balkans, Russia, Transcaucasia, etc. There are some regional variations on his name. The Turks, Greeks, Serbs, Croatians, and Albanians call him Nasreddin Hoja. In Iran and the modern-day republics of Azerbaijan and Georgia, he is called Molla or Mulla Nasreddin. Some of the tales attributed to Nasreddin originate in the Arab world, where the trickster is called Juha, Joha or Goha. In Central Asia, Nasreddin is known as Ependi, Afandi, Hoja or Qoja Nasreddin. Through Uighur adaptations, the trickster reached modern China where he became Afanti. And in Sicily he is known as Giufà. Although Juha usually appears as an ambivalent figure and demonstrates contradictory traits of his character, he is loved by both grown-ups and children in all corners of the world.

We invite scholars to explore interdisciplinary themes related to multiple humorous and satirical narratives, presenting the various sets of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish treatment of the trickster character in order to identify cross-temporal and trans-local conceptualizations of the comic manifestation in samples of high literature as well as in folk narratives. Applying a comparative approach the conference aspires to facilitate a dialogue between classical and modern conceptualizations of the comic while questioning their boundaries.

• Registration opens: June 15, 2021
• Registration Fees for participation is: $60 USD
• Registrant who is interested in presenting a paper should pay an addition $200 USD, which includes reviewing and publishing that paper in the AWL journal.
• Deadline of registration to participate in the conference and paying the fees is October 15, 2021.
• Participants and Registrants will be provided with the Zoom link to enable them to join the conference sessions.

• Payments can be made by bank transfer to:
  
  • Name of bank: Barclays Bank
  • Address: 425-427, Shirley Rd, Southampton SO15 3TH, UK
  • Account number: 80632503
  • Sort code: 20-79-31
  • IBAN account number: GB47 BUKB 20793180632503
  • Swift Code: BUKBGB22
  • Beneficiary's Name: Andromeda Publishing and Academic Services
  • Beneficiary's address: 178, Merton High Street, London, SW19 1AY, United Kingdom or Credit Card via the PayPal

• Babcock-Abrahams, Barbara (1975). “Tolerated Margin of Mess: The Trickster and His Tales Reconsidered.” Journal of the Folklore Institute, Vol. 11.1.3, pp. 147-186.
• Bergson, Henri (2014). Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Trans. by Cloudesley Brereton & Fred Rothwell. New York: the Macmillan Company.
  https://archive.org/details/laughteranessay00berggoog/page/n16/mode/2up
• Carroll, Michael P. (1981). “Lévi-Strauss, Freud, and the Trickster: A New Perspective upon an Old Problem.” American Ethnologist. Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 301-313.
• Corrao, Francesca Maria (1991). Giufà. Il furbo, lo sciocco, il saggio. Prefazione di Leonardo Sciascia, Milano: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore.
• Freud, Sigmund (2002). The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious. Trans. by Joyce Crick. New York & London: Penguin Group.
  https://sjsu.edu/people/victoria.harrison/courses/JWSS111/s1/Freud-Joke.pdf
• Hartley, John. “Paradigm Shifters: Tricksters and Cultural Science.” Cultural Science Journal, 3 (1), 2010, pp. 1-19.
• Hyde, Lewis (1998). Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
• Lévi-Strauss, Claude (1963). Structural Anthropology. Trans. by Claire Jacobson. New York: Basic Books.
• Lévi-Strauss, Claude (1955). “The Structural Study of Myth.” Journal of American Folklore, No. 28, pp. 428–442.
• Meletinsky, Eleazar (1998). The Poetics of Myth. Trans. by Guy Lanoue and Alexandre Sadetsky. New York: Garland.
• Propp, Vladimir (1968). Morphology of the Folk Tale. Trans. by Laurence Scott. Austin: University of Texas Press.
  https://monoskop.org/images/f/f3/Propp_Vladimir_Morphology_of_the_Folktale_2nd_ed.pdf
• Selby, Henry and Garretson, Lucy (1981). Cultural Anthropology. Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown Company Publishers.