Emerson College is known for producing journalists and actors. And some of them are pretty funny, Grads include Jay Leno, Denis Leary, Andrea Martin, and Seth Grahame-Smith, author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

So, it’s only appropriate that the school host a conference on laughter. The event takes place next week.

Laughter and Humor in Interaction: L(h)II XI brings together scholars from around the world conducting research on laughter and humor from conversation analytic, discourse analytic, pragmatics, ethnomethodological, ethnographic, and related perspectives. Presentations and papers will concern topics such as the sequential organization of laughter, laughables and humor in everyday talk, and how laughing and humor-related actions shape identities and relationships.