International Society for Humor Studies

The ISHS "has membership all around the world. Most of these members are university professors, in such disciplines as Psychology, Medicine, Linguistics, Literature, Education, Philosophy, Fine Arts, Religion, Politics, and Sociology. All of our members are interested in how humor varies from country to country, or according to Vocation, Age, Region, (In)formality, Ethnicity, or Sex (VARIES)."

Get it? VARIES. Vocation, Age, Region, (In)formality, Ethnicity, or Sex. Cool. I think the (In)'s there so they can include both formality and informality in one i-starting word. Other wise it'd be VARIFES.

People who can take humor seriously enough to study it are generally a rather fun lot. There's a belief in fun that permeates their work. Meet, for stumbled-upon example, Paul Lewis, "chair of the English department at Boston College, ...author of Comic Effects: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Humor in Literature (S.U.N.Y. Press) and of articles on American literature and culture before the Civil War, gothic fiction, humor, and composition pedagogy," as found on their Researching Humor and Laughter page of "links to current research projects, as well as the home pages and e-mail addresses of colleagues and institutions involved in research on humor and laughter."

ISHI. A veritable treasure of funtropic people and ideas.