[Linganth] Idea: AAA panel on verbal duels

[Valentina Pagliai]

Dear linglab friends,

I am thinking to organizing a panel on verbal duels.  I have been doing
fieldwork on a genre of verbal duel' performances in Tuscany (for years)
and the idea of this panel keep spinning in my mind.

The panel's papers could go in various directions, for example:
-  Verbal duels as forms of resistance. Can they affect social norms?
Deconstruct them? Deconstruct social realities?
- What about face-work when insults are involved? How do performers
cooperate in insulting each other? How is face maintained or deconstructed
in these events?
-What about the creation of conflict? (See some of the themes raised by the
book "Disorderly Discourse.")
- How do verbal duels relate to/affect the construction of identities? (for
example the gender/sexual identities of the performers when the insults are
directed at one's masculinity/femininity)
- How are humoristic effects created?
Etc.

There is plenty of studies on insults in general, but verbal duels in
particular have received less attention (except possibly by folklorists).
Studies are there, but relatively older - I can't think of panel
presentations on this subject for the last ten years (but I might be wrong).

Anybody interested? Since the deadline for the AAA submissions is getting
closer, I would like to start working on it in earnest.

Let me know,

Valentina Pagliai
Dept. of Anthropology
Oberlin College