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More than 7,000 academics are gathered in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont. this week for the annual Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, presenting papers on everything from scatological censorship in children’s books to the brand power of ParticipACTION. In this week-long series, theNational Postshowcases some of the most interesting research.

Canadian stand-up comedian Debra DiGiovanni jokes about eating a skinny man for dinner, about the borderline inappropriate relationship she has with her cat, about wanting to be called a “retrosexual,” or someone who hasn’t had sex in 20 years and likes to do it to ’80s music.

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She’s become one of the most recognizable and successful Canadian women in the male dominated field of stand-up comedy.

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But she almost has no choice but to cast herself in this light — as unattractive, sexually unappealing and self-deprecating — in order to achieve that success, argues Danielle Deveau, who defended her PhD dissertation on stand up comedians in Canada this spring and presented on female stand-up comedians at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences this week.