English 43 - Winter, 2012

Introductory Topics in Drama

Topic: Comedy

Class Information

Instructor: Shershow, Scott
CRN: 53840
Time: MWF 12:10-1:00
Location: 118 Olson

Description

All comedians are interested in justice. The whole point of standing up and screaming about crabgrass, about your mother-in-law, about “kids today,” is justice. You’re trying to square the world, to make the world make sense.
— George Carlin


This course attempts the impossible: a brief introduction to the theory and practice of comedy. We’ll consider comedy both as an ancient tradition and a vital instance of contemporary popular culture, and think about fundamental questions that have always been asked and never really been answered, such as: what is a joke? why do people laugh? what makes something funny?

We’ll begin by reading an incongruous assortment of short comic plays from the middle ages to "Seinfeld." We’ll continue by considering the contemporary phenomenon of “stand-up comedy,” using as examples the filmed performances of the late George Carlin and Richard Pryor, which we will discuss alongside the Supreme Court’s landmark 1978 case FCC v. Pacifica (which upheld the power of the state to prohibit “dirty words” on radio and television), a few brief highlights of the history of comic theory, and Freud’s Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. Finally, we’ll return to the classical tradition of theatrical comedy by considering full-length comic plays by Shakespeare, Brecht and Shaw, plays in which the impulse of laughter reveals its full ideological and utopian power.

Grading

Evaluation will be based on a short paper (15%), a longer paper (30%), midterm (25%) and final examination (30%).

Texts

The Taming of the Shrew, William Shakespeare
Major Barbara, George Bernard Shaw
Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, Sigmund Freud
Other texts available as electronic resources on Smartsite
The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Bertolt Brecht