TLU takes part in the project HUMLIT to turn tensions into a tickle
In today’s European polarised society, conflicts and controversies often escalate due to miscommunication and a lack of understanding. Traditional dialogue methods frequently fall short, leaving many issues unresolved or exacerbated. Humour, when used poorly, can further deepen divides, while its potential for positive impact remains untapped.
The project HUMLIT explores and harnesses the power of humour literacy to reframe public conflicts in Europe. The goal of the project is to find out how humour literacy can be used to reframe the conflicts and controversial issues in the public sphere and bring benefit to European society by promoting dialogue rather than conflict. Humour literacy is understood to be an ability to decipher the signs, references and messages that humorous discourse evokes, and an awareness of the benefits and risks of presenting these messages in humorous form to different audiences, public and private, such as a risk of humour failure, humour scandal, or discriminatory humour. HUMLIT has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe Research and Innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 101182860 and is supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme.
The project will span 48 months and it includes 25 partner institutions (17 academic and 8 non-academic ones) from the EU and beyond. The aim is to create synergy by combining the professional and culture-specific expertise of the academic project participants, who represent diverse fields of study including linguistics, folkloristics, sociology, critical literacy, second language teaching, political communication and computational analysis, with that of practitioners. One of the academic partners is Tallinn University.
In the framework of this project, Guillem Castañar, Lecturer of Hispanic Studies at TLU School of Humanities, has been on a one-month research stay in the Spanish town of Alcalá de Henares, at the Quevedo Institute of Arts of Humour. Guillem Castañar has actively cooperated with the staff of the Quevedo Institute in the implementation of the first phase of the project that lasts from April until July 2025. During this first phase, researchers from academic institutions conduct interviews with humour producers to learn about how they create humour and how it is received by their audiences.
The cooperation between TLU and the Quevedo Institute has proved fruitful. During his stay in Spain, Guillem Castañar has interviewed several humourists widely known by Spanish audiences, such as stand-up comedians Goyo Jiménez and Luis Piedrahíta, journalist and screenwriter Raquel Martos and graphic artists Yeyei Gómez and Raquel Gu. These interviews have been transcribed and translated and, in the next phases of the HUMLIT project, they will be tagged and turned into valuable data for its analysis.
