John Banas
Improving Your Life with Comedy: The Art and Science of Humor
6:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 25, 2019
MAINSITE Contemporary Art
$25

Everyone likes to laugh, but fewer people have considered how humor can improve their lives. This workshop will explore humor from both the social scientific and creative perspectives. We will discuss first create a new way to understand and perceive humor, followed by discussing the empirical support for some benefits of humor, and we will conclude by exploring ways to increase laughter in our lives (e.g., improv, stand-up comedy).

Banas is an Associate Professor in the Communication department at the University of Oklahoma. One of his research interests, and the subject of one of my most popular and highest-rated courses at OU, is humor. This class distills that course into a seminar-length workshop. Humor for Banas is not merely an academic pursuit; he’s been performing stand-up comedy for several years.