Mirco Göpfert in Lund University
On September 21, Mirco Göpfert presented his talk “Dissonance. Cartooning in Iran, humour and the study of things that don’t match” at the Sociology and Anthropology Seminar Series.
Drawing on his research with cartoonists in Iran and the Iranian diaspora since 2015, Professor Göpfert’s talk described cartooning – and by extension: humour – as an epistemic practice of dissonance combining modes of perception, composition and amplification. Bringing this description into dialogue with anthropology’s own experience of embracing dissonance, even if it wasn’t aware of doing it, this talk attempted to generate yet unaddressed leads to further think about the possibilities (and limits, as it may be the case) of humour and cartooning to perceive, render and amplify dissonance – to think about how anthropologists can embrace dissonances with humour, humility, and critique.