学术演讲的幽默研究：从僵尸听众到会心一笑

Academic writing is dull. There, we said it. The rules and norms of it are such that most papers and monographs are plodding and pedantic, filled with jargon, and frankly exhausting to read. In the pursuit of rigour, academics often achieve rigor mortis. But sometimes we come across a joyful exception. Take a paper published in March in Proceedings of the Royal Society B and sent to us by our colleague Jacob Aron, who described it as “pure Feedbacknip, if such a thing exists”. It opens thusly: “At some point in every scientific conference – usually right before lunch – a strange transformation occurs: the audience turns into zombies. …