Unraveling the seriousness fallacy: a case for (the study of) humor and religion

Abstract

This article establishes and demonstrates the importance of the topic of humor and religion. It traces the evolution of the existing scholarship on humor and religion, from its emergence in the 1960s, to its revival in the 1990s, and its latest resurgence in recent years. To overlook the presence of the comic, humor, and laughter in religious traditions is to overlook something significant. This article will demonstrate how interrogating and overcoming biases and preconceptions about the relationship between humor and religion reveals opportunities in both religious studies and humor studies. As such, this article offers a rejection of the existing privilege that is granted to ‘serious’ matters and argues for the inclusion of the non-serious – with a particular emphasis on humor – within (the study of) religion. In arguing for the necessity of taking the study of the (allegedly) non-serious seriously, the artificial nature of the binary of serious/non-serious becomes apparent. As such, this article begins to challenge and re-evaluate the conceptualization of ‘the serious’ and the limitations this inevitably places on our thinking and engagement regarding matters such as humor and religion.