The National Cultures of English-Language Comedy Symposium is co-sponsored by the School of English, Drama & Film at University College Dublin and the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre at the University of Notre Dame. The symposium will take place on 16-17 November 2017 at the Notre Dame London Global Gateway. The co-organizers of the symposium are Dr. Christine Becker and Dr. Jorie Lagerwey.

Christine Becker is an Associate Professor in the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre at the University of Notre Dame specializing in film and television history and critical analysis. Her book It’s the Pictures That Got Small: Hollywood Film Stars on 1950s Television (Wesleyan University Press, 2009) won the 2011 IAMHIST Michael Nelson Prize for a Work in Media and History. She is currently working on a research project exploring issues of cultural taste in contemporary American and British television. She is also the Associate Online Editor for Cinema Journal and runs the News For TV Majors blog.

Jorie Lagerwey is a Lecturer in Television Studies in the School of English, Drama, and Film at University College Dublin. She is the author of  Postfeminist Celebrity and Motherhood: Brand Mom, which analyzes contemporary representations of motherhood in celebrity brands and reality television. Her work has appeared in Cinema Journal, Television and New Media, Studies in Popular Culture, and elsewhere. Dr. Lagerwey’s primary research interests are in the representations of gender, race, and religion on television and other digital media; discourses of quality on TV and online; and celebrity culture.