Freedom of humor and satire is an essential component of democratic life; but at the same time, some forms of humor can be a vehicle for hateful or anti-democratic messages. How can we draw a line between free speech and hate speech, when it comes to humor? Answering these questions is particularly difficult in the case of highly condensed (and often ambiguous) forms of visual humor, such as cartoons or memes.

On 21 September 2020, the members of the Constructive Advanced Thinking team Cartoons in Court presented the project they will be working on during the next three years at four European Institutes for Advanced Study. The project focuses on visual humor controversies from an interdisciplinary perspective, with special but not exclusive regard to cartoons. The event featured a general introduction and five short presentations by the team members, followed by an open Q&A.

Speakers: Alberto Godioli (University of Groningen, PI); Vicky Breemen (Utrecht University); Andrew Bricker (Ghent University); Ana Pedrazzini (ECyC IPEHCS CONICET – Comahue National University); Tjeerd Royaards (Cartoon Movement).

Host: Andrey Demidov (scientific coordinator of IAS CEU Budapest)

The project is supported by the Constructive Advanced Thinking (CAT) program, an initiative by the Network of European Institutes for Advanced Study (NetIAS). IAS CEU is a host institution for the 'Cartoons in Court' team. The online event was co-sponsored by Cartoon Movement.