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A German expert giving a presentation on humour? That is entirely absurd! Outrageous! Or is it? Well, give Eva Ullmann 20 minutes of your time and then judge for yourself! Since the general opinion attributes very little sense of humour to Germans, she decided to embark on a journey to discover and analyse it. She’s been exploring the fascinating (and surprisingly effective) combination of seriousness and humour. Humour can quickly grab people’s attention, it can decrease stress and can help you to deflect unfair attacks. (These techniques even work with German humour...) Eva Ullmann founded the German Institute for Humour in Leipzig. She is keynote speaker, writer, manager and humour coach.
Eva Ullmann studied medicine and pedagogy. At some point, she ended up in a project on the role that humour plays in psychotherapy. She became, as The Economist put it, “hooked on the subject”, co-authored the book Humor im Business (Humour in the business world) with her colleague Albrecht Kresse and published a number of audio books. Recently, she published her new book, Humour, together with her colleague Katrin Hansmeier. She also writes for specialized journals and, in her capacity as a humour expert, regularly gives interviews in different media. She’s had a number of TV appearances, for instance on MDR, Pro 7, Sat 1 and VOX. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx