Tuesday, 5/20/2025
at 7:00 PM


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PHILOSOPHISCHES CAFÉ – ROBERT PFALLER
Please don't laugh! About philosophy, comedy, and humor

"Everyone knows when to laugh at a comedy. But very few can explain why," notes Robert Pfaller at the very beginning of his new book. Luckily, there are cultural theorists and philosophers who can enlighten us.

This is exactly what the Austrian philosopher Robert Pfaller, a professor in Linz and one of the most well-known and original thinkers of our time, undertakes in his work "The Laughter of the Unfooled – The Philosophical Dignity of Comedy" (S. Fischer). From avant-garde art performances to "Sex and the City", from classic Hollywood screwball comedies to the everyday tragicomedy of our existence: As always equipped with plenty of psychoanalysis and just as much wit, Pfaller examines the specifically human ability to laugh and to create humor. Especially against a zeitgeist that quickly slips into the gloomy-tragic and pleasure-hostile.

A cheerful evening about the seriousness of the situation.

Moderation: Catherine Newmark

With kind support from the Udo Keller Stiftung Forum Humanum

Photo (c) Peter Rigaud

Entry from 6:00 PM / Bar service provided by the Literaturhauscafé

Event data provided by: Reservix

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