Nikolay Aretov

The Objects of the Enlightened Laughter

(Introduction)

This text presents the concept behind the interdisciplinary conference Enlightened Laughter and this electronic publication. The conference was organized by Bulgarian society for 18th century studies and took place in University of Sofia at 3 and 4 April 2004. The participants were scholars from Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, lecturers from several other Bulgarian universities and guests from Macedonia and Turkey.

Organizers tried to encourage their colleagues to deal with several topics:

Laughter as social, psychological and cultural phenomenon;

Laughter, comic and parody in literature, art and culture from the age of Enlightenment and their effects in other periods of Bulgarian, Balkan and European culture;

Laughter in popular culture, etc.

Some observations on the text are offered, and some conclusions too.