Zoe Walker

I teach a number of papers at Trinity, including General Philosophy, Moral Philosophy and Logic for preliminary examinations and Ethics and Aesthetics for final examinations.

I work on various philosophical issues surrounding humour, comedy and joking, which involves a mixture of Aesthetics, Ethics, Philosophy of Language and Philosophy of Mind. I am interested in joking as a form of under-the-radar communication, what your sense of humour says about you, and how humour shapes our patterns of attention.

You can hear me talk about the relationship between philosophy and comedy on the Forum for Philosophy podcast, or read my brief discussion of Jimmy Carr and the ethics of humour for the Institute of Arts and Ideas.

'A Sensibility of Humour', British Journal of Aesthetics (2023) (https://academic.oup.com/bjaesthetics/advance-article/doi/10.1093/aesthj/ayad020/7332182?searchresult=1).

'Just Kidding? Two Roles for the Concept of Joking in Political Speech', Philosophical Quarterly (2023) (https://academic.oup.com/pq/advance-article/doi/10.1093/pq/pqad121/7502969?searchresult=1).

‘Art’s Underthought: art, presupposition and immorality’, Warwick Journal of Philosophy (2022)

‘Upsetting the Alphabet People’, in Mark Ralkowski ed. Dave Chappelle and Philosophy (Popular Culture and Philosophy Series) (2021)