Episode 10: Professor Tony Moore/The one about Comedy History

Episode hosts: Ben Nickl and Matilda Knowles

About our guest on this episode:

Tony is the Lead Chief Investigator for the ARC Linkage Grant ‘Comedy Country’. Based at Monash University’s School of Media, Film and Journalism, he has a background in leading large-scale projects and is an experienced cultural and media historian focusing on the intersection of countercultures, popular culture and politics and the translation of research into digital media outputs. Tony’s books include Fringe to Famous – Australian Cultural Production After theCreative Industries (Bloomsbury, 2024), Dancing with Empty Pockets: Australia’s Bohemians Since 1860 (2012 Allen & Unwin), Death or Liberty:  Rebels and Radicals Transported toAustralia 1788-1868 (adapted as major ABC screendocumentary), and The Barry McKenzie Movies (Currency Press 2005). Tony has enjoyed previous careers in media and book publishing as a documentary maker and current affairs producer at ABC TV, and commissioning editor of Pluto Press and Cambridge University Press.

About the episode hosts:

Ben is a Senior Lecturer in The University of Sydney’sDepartment of Comparative Literature and Translation Studies. He works on popular technologies of mediation like humour and laughter and is the research coordinator for the Australasian Humour Studies Network. His latest book iscalled Moral Dimensions of Humour (Tampere University Press, open access, 2024).

Til is a PhD candidate at Monash University inMelbourne, Australia. Her PhD research focuses on the influence of suicide jokes told by stand-up comedians in post-2000s Australia. She’s interested in the role of authenticity, community, mediation and confession in contemporary performance comedy.  Til’s Master's research, “Larrikins, listeners and Lifeline: inside Australian comedy chatcast The Little Dum Dum Club”, examined the performance of cultural conventions and community in comedy podcasts. Til is also a pop culture writer, speculative fiction nerd, and host of the ‘Serrated Edge’ AHSN ECR podcast.

Acknowledgement of Country:

We would like to acknowledge and pay respect to the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the traditional owners and custodians of the lands on which the University of Sydney has been built, and which were taken from them without their consent, treaty or compensation. Most episodes of this podcast were recorded on this land.
This land has always been a learning space for many Aboriginal nations, and as teachers and students, and people of all kinds of origins, we can draw strength and guidance from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge, one of the oldest knowledge systems in the world.

Want to come on as a guest or co-host, or get in touch aboutsomething else? Simply email [e-mail](AHSN research coordinator and ‘Cutting Edge’ host), visit the AHSN website https://ahsnhumourstudies.org/  and follow/subscribe to us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/AHSNHumour/, YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@ahsnconference or Twitter/X @AHSN_Humour.

Special thanks and all credit for editing and sound engineering goes to Jacob Craig/USYD FASS media room studios.