Shaun May

In my thesis, I use the work of Heidegger, specifically his ‘fundamental ontology’, to build a phenomenology of two areas of humour. First, the comic failure (of body and objects) and second, anthropomorphic humour.

In my view, when I skillfully manipulate an object it becomes an extension of my being. The phenomena is not that I hold a ‘thing’ which I use to cut the paper, but simply that I cut the paper. Acknowledging this is essential to understanding both object manipulation (scissors and puppets) as well as object failure. When the tool fails me it suddenly emerges as salient - an emergence which is at the heart of much comic failure.

Crucially, I want to argue that humanlike objects and animals are characterised by what Heidegger called ‘being-in-the-world’ and that the object failing discloses this world to us.

In addition to my academic research, I'm the Artistic Director of Square Moon Theatre, with which I write and direct. I have worked with the Rare Theatricall on the final production of their Leverhulme Fellowship at the Royal Academy of Music and with the Dummy Company on several productions, including a residency at the University of Cambridge. As a producer, I specialise in site-specific work with credits including a critically acclaimed site-specific opera in an Ikea store.

- Conference papers -

April 2012 - 'Mental Predicates and Intelligent Performance' at the 'How Performance Thinks', PSi Philosophy and Performance Working Group Interim Symposium, London

February 2012 - 'Mr Bean and Fundamental Ontology: A Heideggerean Perspective on the 'Translatability Debate'' at the Playing For Laughs Conference, De Montfort University

January 2012 - 'Mealtimes with Chaplin: A Phenomenology of Eating in ‘Modern Times’ and ‘The Gold Rush’' at Performing Research: Creative Exchanges, CSSD

September 2011 - 'Heidegger, Object Theatre and Fundamental Ontology' at TaPRA: Theatre, Performance and Philosophy Working Group, Kingston University

July 2011 - 'Equipmental Transgression and Referential
Contexts: A Heideggerean Phenomenology of Objects in Chaplin' at Film-Philosophy Conference, Liverpool John Moores University

May 2011 - 'Anthropomorphic Things and Anthropic Objects' at CSSD Postgraduate Conference

March 2011 - Equipmentality, Fundamental Ontology and 'Humour of the Human' at Who Do We Think We Are?: Representing the Human Conference at Royal Holloway, University of London

 October 2010 - ‘What Jokebots Can’t Do: A Critique of Computational Humour Theory’ at Georgia State University’s New Voices Conference

September 2010 - ‘Autism and the Spectrum of Worldhood Poverty: A Mirror Neuron Perspective’ at University College Dublin’s 21st Century Heidegger Conference