The Australian Comedy Studies Collective is a network of performers, scholars, and postgraduate students dedicated to the critical study of comedy in Australia and around the globe.


Our members actively research and publish scholarship on the performance and reception of comedy wherever it takes place — on stage, in film, on television, radio, podcast, or online — as well as how comedy intersects with wider social structures such as ideology, identity, technology, and health.

We consider comedy an art, a cultural practice, and a form of labour. As such, comedy is a social good that all people should have the right and opportunity to participate in. Equally, we recognise comedy’s existence within inequitable social formations and its power to cause harm, to maintain or further oppression, and to widen inequality. This group aims to illuminate and understand comedy’s capacity to effect social change — both negatively and positively — while celebrating the vital role it plays in making the world a better and more equal place by fostering self-expression, empowerment, and social cohesion.

What We Do

The ACSC provides a forum for performers and scholars to connect and contribute to the critical discussion of comedy in Australia. We host events including conference panels, reading groups, and social gatherings, and we collaborate on research that furthers our understanding of comedy as an art and a creative practice. We work to foster relationships between like-minded researchers working in a variety of disciplines, and we maintain close ties with larger and more formal scholarly organisations like the Australasian Humour Studies Network.

If you perform or study comedy and share an interest in critically investigating its social, cultural, and ideological dimensions, we invite you to join us by becoming a member, attending an event, or subscribing to our newsletter.

Upcoming Events


“We’re so culturally conditioned to equate solemnity with profundity that we overlook the serious truths comedy can reveal.”

— Andy Medhurst