Enlightened Humor? Comic Relief in the Long Eighteenth Century (1): Humor, Community, and the Public Sphere (sponsored by the Lessing Society) 

9/27/25, 1:45pm–3:35pm Rosslyn II 

Moderator: Mary Helen Dupree, Georgetown University 

Commentator: Eleanor ter Horst, University of South Alabama 

Satirical Song: Friedrich Nicolai’s Eyn feyner Kleiner Almanach 

Evan Strouss, University of California, Berkeley 

“Lächelt nicht!–Wer weiß?”: Humor, Uncertainty, and Humanity in Lessing’s Nathan der Weise

(1779) 

Pascale LaFountain, Montclair State University

Enlightened Humor? Comic Relief in the Long Eighteenth Century (2): Cultural Politics of Wit and Satire (sponsored by the Lessing Society) 

9/28/25, 10:10am–12:00pm Rosslyn I 

Moderator: Pascale LaFountain, Montclair State University 

Commentator: Joel Lande, Princeton University 

Trick Endings: The Role of Humor in Constituting Enlightenment in Thomasius’ Monats-Gesprächen 

Jan Behrs, Tulane University 

The Minimizing-Glass of Wit: Lichtenberg’s Hogarth and Distortive Observation 

Austen Hinkley, Yale University 

The Vertices of Witz: J.H. Campe’s Kleine Seelenlehre für Kinder and Robinson der Jüngere Elliott Schreiber, Vassar College