Training wheel phrase exercise

Here's the link to the exercise. Use this as a way to get started on your final paper if you are having problems. Even if you are not, it's not a bad idea to use some or all of the techniques this suggests.

Essay 4 - Term Paper

The final paper will be a more developed, somewhat longer paper that builds on all the skills we have practiced so far: focusing on a narrowly defined topic, locating and entering a conversation, and supporting a strong claim. For this final paper, we will be increasing the number of peer-reviewed sources to five (5). The purpose of this added research will be to allow you to more fully develop the conversation you are joining, and to allow you to more authoritatively address the relationships between your sources and your position within the conversation.

For paper four, you might think of yourself as in a similar position to that of a journalist who is investigating a specialized issue and attempting to translate it into terms understandable by the general public. Talking to experts and reading their work will not only help you first grasp and understand the terms of the conversation, but it will allow you to clarify what you think is most important about the issue for your own readers, and to do so with authority. Comparing and contrasting the different scholarly views will let you clarify assumptions that one scholar relies on but that another scholar either disagrees with or articulates in a different form. 

Once again, you are free to write on any topic that is related to our course materials and discussions over the semester. If you are feeling stuck, remember that we have discussed two major types of papers so far: those that apply theories and research to specific pieces of comedy, and those that analyze an issue in comedy theory. You can focus on either of these or produce some combination of the two. The most important thing, regardless of topic, is to focus the majority of your paper (70-80%) on explaining/justifying your central claim and analyzing your evidence. 

The final paper should be 2000-2500 words long (not including works cited page) in Times New Roman, 12 point font, with 1 inch margins. If you want to have a chance to submit an early draft for a grade and full comments, you will need to submit it by Monday, November 26. The final paper is due Tuesday, December 11, by midnight.

A shameless plug

Looking for TA credit? Interested in comedy? Want to know about the ultimate origins of the weird and experimental comedy we read this semester? Well look no further than ENG304. It has the extremely dull title of Restoration and 18th Century English Literature, but I promise you it will be much more amusing than this sounds. There's all sorts of bizarre and wackadoodle texts from this period that are loads of fun to explore. For example: this and this and this and all these very real titles

Even if you are unsure about the course, go ahead and register since you can always switch classes during drop/add.

Course ID: 57896

In praise of bad writing

Another great thing about comedy is that it teaches us to love our flaws. But unlike the positive thinking or self-esteem movements, comedy doesn't just teach us to overcome our imperfections--it shows how our flaws are always already our strengths. The worst things about us are already the best things about us, simply in an inverted form. And our bad writing is already our good writing, just in a distorted form. The key task of a writer is to transform the anti-genius of the bad into the the genius of the good. It's like learning to recognize the great things about movies that are so bad they are good.

Here's a few things to ponder today as we free ourselves to "write bad."

First, consider how bad first drafts are the gateway to good ones. 

Second, consider how embracing our bad writing can be freeing.

Finally, consider the ways that bad writing is not all that different from good writing. What makes bad writing bad often has to do with the attitude of the writer. The writer is not communicating to others, but having an internal dialogue. There is nothing wrong about this. It simply suggests that we need to start having a dialogue with others, rather than giving a monologue. Even though the other person is silent, we should think of all writing as a conversation. The essence of a conversation is to see every statement as serving to bring the other person deeper into the topic, to entrance them, to wow them.

Bad writing is common. Very bad writing is uncommon for the same reason that very good writing is uncommon: it does something impressive. It fails in a way that is spectacular and risky.

As a wise man once said...

The struggle is real...

Essay Three: Participating in the Conversation

For essay three, we will continue to build on the work we have done in the first two papers. We will still focus on rooting the paper in significant details. The majority of the paper will still offer detailed explanations and justifications of your main claim, based in analysis of the specific details of your sources. We will also again use scholarly sources to help build more significant and refutable claims. 

While paper three still will use all these same major skills and tools as the last paper, it will aim to further challenge you by asking you to incorporate more sources into your argument. Using one source is relatively simple as you can simply apply its insights to whatever you are analyzing. In using more than one source, however, you must not only explain your relationship to your sources but explain the relationship among the different sources. This creates a significantly more challenging task. 

To tackle paper three, you will need not only to understand and apply your sources but quickly to establish how they fit together. This will require offering your own sense of what the consensus on an issue is. Find the three scholarly sources on your topic that seem most authoritative, insightful, and helpful. Look for sources that are cited by other sources and that other scholars consider influential and important to understanding the issue. For this assignment, picking good sources will be just as important as developing a clear, refutable, and significant thesis, and it will be much easier to develop a good thesis with the assistance of good sources. 

Establish your own sense of how these all fit together. Then situation your own argument within this conversation. What does the current scholarly consensus seem to agree on? What does it not agree on? What areas have the existing scholars overlooked? Rather than attacking or simply dismissing the existing scholarly consensus, focus on building on it and entering into the conversation it sustains. Look for ways in which you can contribute to the conversation by extending insights in ways that the existing research has not considered. Look for ways in which you can push the conversation into new territory that it has not yet discussed. Situate your own argument in the debates and concepts that the existing scholarship employs. Show how your own argument is significant in light of the existing research. 

This essay should be 1500-1700 words long, formatted in the standard Times New Roman 12 point font with 1 inch margins. Include at least three peer-reviewed sources. Bring a rough draft to class Friday, November 2. The final essay is due Friday, November 9, and 12 pm. 

What was Hutcheson responding to?

Not just thinking about comedy, but a comedic poem itself: The Grumbling Hive.

Article on Fake News

This article also talks about comedy, fake news, and politics, but it comes to a different conclusion from the earlier ones we read. It argues that there is less difference between conservative talk radio and exaggerated fake news, on the one hand, and liberal irony and parody news shows, on the other hand.

Essay 2 - Debate as a Model for Research, Research as Structured by Debate

For the first paper, we practiced emulating one of the central features of academic writing: its narrow, specific, and tight focus. For this second paper, we will keep that level of specificity, but also employ research to connect our claims to the work of other scholars studying the same topic. As with the last paper, you can select any class text as the basis for your analysis, and you are also free to explore other topics of interest to you. The most important thing, again, is not what you write about, but how you write, and by focusing in on a precise detail or aspect of whatever text, film, clip, or other phenomenon you are exploring, you will ensure that your writing keeps this narrow and focused quality.

For this paper, you will again pick a significant detail and focus on explaining its importance. This time, however, you will also add in research to help develop your claims by building them on the views of others. Instead of thinking about research as the process of finding information, we will instead think of it as a process for locating and entering an ongoing scholarly dialogue, conversation, or exchange of ideas. By clearly defining who you are talking to and why you are talking to them, scholarly research helps to focus your writing and to clarify its significance. In addition to finding out facts, academic research helps organize such information into distinct arguments with a defined relationship to one another, thereby clarifying what information is useful and what information is extraneous.

For this assignment, do not think of yourself as simply trying to disprove other scholars or contradict their work. Your claim, rather, should simply situate your topic within an existing conversation, and even when you are exploring a point of disagreement make sure to concede the strengths of other positions and use these strengths to help develop your own views. See disagreement as a way to add specificity and focus to the position you are arguing, not simply as a way to refute or disprove other viewpoints. Be positive and productive: show how the conversations help make sense of what you are studying, and show how your topic contributes and extends existing conversations. Remember the lesson of Monty Python: mere contradiction is not argumentation. Instead, think of yourself as very modestly using the work of others to amplify your claims and help establish why they are significant by clarifying whom you are speaking to and why.

This paper should be around 1300-1600 words long. It should be typed, double-spaced, in Times New Roman 12 inch font with 1 inch margins. You should include at least 1 peer-reviewed, scholarly article, but you can use as many as are necessary. As long as you include at least one peer-reviewed source, you are also free to use non-peer reviewed sources from quality publications such as those found through the library databases, though this is not a requirement. Bring a rough draft for peer editing Friday, October 12. The paper is due Friday, October 19, at noon.

Jason and the Great Male Narcissist

As a follow up to our discussions of the Great Male Narcissist, you might check out this excellent essay, titled, 20 Authors I Don't Need to Read Since I Have Dated Men for 16 Years. It makes the excellent point that some features of male narcissism are almost built into the structure of many famous works of literature, something that DCM really hits upon. Anyway, it's worth a read. And it's interesting that David Foster Wallace, who himself coined the term "Great Male Narcissist," shows up on the list. One can both be cognizant of something while still participating in it, and the consensus is that Wallace did.

Jason Fitger and the Politics of Verbosity

Jason Fitger immediately calls to mind a Buzzfeed listicle that you might have seen. It features a dozen or so pictures of people reading texts on their phones or laptops. We cannot quite make out what they are texting, but we can see the form their texting takes: long, paragraph chunks of text. Built into the very form of this writing is a certain assumption not only about its content, but about the meaning of the activity itself. As the Buzzfeed title puts it succinctly: these people are definitely breaking up.

In his essay, I will argue that Jason Fitger is a both a parody of, and an elegy for, a certain kind of character: the self-important mid-century male intellectual whose boorish behavior primarily takes the form of an inability to shut off his analytical faculties. Like the people in the Buzzfeed article, his emotions do not silence him but make him unable to stop talking. Analysis and probing is, in its own way, a kind of harassment or intrusion. There is something traumatic not just about what people say when they say too much, but about the act of saying too much itself. The works of many male novelists and film makers from the 20th century--John Updike, Phillip Roth, Norman Mailer, and Woody Allen, to name a few--are populated with figures like Fitger who are just as often celebrated for their lovable eccentricities as parodied for their abusive tendencies. David Foster Wallace argued that these figures themselves--he called them the Great Male Narcissists--were just as often representative of these character types as their fictional creations. One of the most celebrated traits of these figures was their ability for incisive, probing rants and diatribes.

Of course, Dear Committee Members is something different altogether: in this book, Julie Schumacher also engages in a healthy dose of celebration of the Great Male Narcissist. She does so, though, in the same spirit that an anthropologist might celebrate the archetype of a long-lost culture. Already in her era, figures like Fitger are dinosaurs--fossils of a lost way of doing things. This is not to say that they do not leave a legacy, however. These figures live on in different ways: in the passive aggressive asides of colleagues and in the heartless bureaucracy of the modern university. Fitger seeks to kill off the GMN as a toxic legacy of the past, while at the same time resurrecting his best qualities for the sake of resistance in the present. She seeks to rebuild his incisive wit as a force for good.

Verbosity--the tendency to write much more than is appropriate to a given medium or venue--has a meaning that is itself distinct from the content of the writing itself. We can read not only Fitger's words but the way in which he forms them as well. He most resembles the misogynistic GMN when he is most verbose. However, while Fitger is a normally verbose, he is not always. Just as easy to read are his inabilities to generate large amounts of text. In one case, he concludes a letter for a student he is unenthusiastic about recommending--even though she is highly qualified--with a terse, backhanded compliment: "I recommend Ms. Zelles to you with all the unusual accolades these letters are expected to provide" (31). This relative restraint, I would argue, is a sign of an important agenda in its own right.

Fitger's attitude to Zelles is complicated. She is, on the one hand, a victim of the old-fashioned misogyny that motivates the Great Male Narcissist. One thing these men could not tolerate was a woman who equaled their abilities in the professional sphere. They either had to downgrade these women to junior colleagues, or if they could not do this, transform them into objects of sexual interest, thereby also diminishing them. Fitger is not an unreconstructed GMN in this regard--a true GMN would have begun to date Zelles, not include passive-aggressive asides in his letters. In this sense, Fitger is a more professional version of his previous counterparts, who had no ability to separate business and personal affairs. One of the traits of the narcissist is that business is always personal. If there is a true GMN in the book, it is H. Reginald Hampf, or HRH--not only his initials, but the initials for a monarch: His Royal Highness.

At the same time, Fitger's read on Zelles is also more sophisticated than it might seem: he sees in her the rise of a skilled social climber. It's easy to immediately see Fitger's advocacy of Darren Browles as a way of engaging with his younger self. However, if there is a character who resembles the young Fitger, it would be Zelles. The young Fitger was a skilled writer, but an even more skilled academic politician. When Fitger writes of Zelles, the comments are reminiscent of the way his own writing has been critiqued. He says of her, "She is obviously brilliant, but I find her off-putting and a bit of a cipher. She has a mind like a bric-a-brac storehouse of facts: a surplus of content put to questionable use" (32). His own writing, while in ways brilliant, also seems cluttered and uninspired, and more aimed at promotion than artistic insight. Like Zelles, Fitger's real triumph was to excel at the mind games that his academic advisor played, as he attempted to pit students against one another and manipulate their vulnerabilities. Fitger did not beat the system so much as master it's toxicity, and for all his flaws, he does show a genuine desire to protect the next generation from this similar abuse.

It's tempting to say that Zelles will represent a generation of Great Female Narcissists to rival Jay and his cohort, but this is not correct either. That figure, too, is a relic of the past. There were already a generation of GFNs, whose tactics rivaled and responded to the GMNs. They used mind games and played students off one another just as HRH did (Google Avital Ronell and "transference" if you don't believe me). They were the exception to the rule of a past replete with the GMNs. The rule of the future is not manipulation, but the cold and calculating logic in which academic success is just another way of climbing the corporate ladder. Fitger actually has one foot in both worlds--he played HRH's game, but he seems equally skilled at the new games as well. As he ages, he seems more inclined to beat the system than to master it.

Zelles is smart and talented, but her writing is ultimately no more original than Browles's, suggesting that all that separates them from one another is their skill at "playing the game." By attempting to throw a wrench into the gears of Zelles's climbing, Jay of course might be working through some misogynistic baggage. It is in his verbose missives, though, in his inability to limit the size of letters to his ex-lovers that he really confronts and works through this baggage. We all write long texts in the midst of a breakup--it takes a true GMN to be writing them still years later. It is at these moments that he most seems to be a classic GMN. However, unlike HRH, he seems to mostly protect his students from his narcissism. In his terse LORs for Zelles, by contrast, he is doing something else as well besides working through his past. Much as he needed someone to redirect his intense egoism into more productive channels, he attempts, in his own flawed way, to do this for her. His own penance for his history as a GMN is to advocate for a more humane institution that would allow those of equal ability--Zelles and Browles--an equal chance at success, even if they were not equally skilled at "the game."

I apologize for the length of this essay--I didn't have time to write a shorter one, as the wit famously said.

Debunking three truisms about comedy

As we all know from improv classes, comedy comes in threes. There's the three theories of comedy. There's the rule of three: including something unusual as the third element in a list or series of "normal" things makes it funnier. And then there's what I'll call the three truisms of comedy analysis:

1. explaining humor kills it
2. comedy = tragedy + time
3. comedy is culturally specific

I think they are malarkey.

Let's take the first truism: explaining humor kills it. The problem with this assertion is that, as with anything involving comedy, context is so crucial that it is difficult to say that anything isn't funny in all situations. A classic comedian trick is to explain a joke whenever they believe that the audience didn't fully get it and that they were owed a bigger laugh. One might object: well this is just the exception that proves the rule. You aren't explaining something that is funny in this case; you are explaining something that isn't funny, which makes it funny. But that's not true, because the joke could have gotten a bit of a laugh in the first instance. The point of explaining the humor is not just to do the opposite of what a comedian is normally supposed to do. That's certainly part of the fun, but doesn't totally explain it all. The real purpose of this exercise is to actually point out the fun of the joke. The same holds true for footnotes that explain jokes in works of literature: they often make it possible to laugh at a joke that wouldn't have gotten a laugh otherwise. In all of these cases, the joke is being explained in advance, and if anything it increases rather than decreases the humor.

As with truism one, the problem with truism two is that it underestimates the way that comedy allows us to take a cold, analytic attitude toward the world. Truism one assumes that comedy cannot take place in an environment where critical thought occurs. However, I think that comedy and critical distance have a similarity. When someone cites truism two, that comedy is tragedy plus time, I always call to mind another truism about comedy, one that I think is more accurate: tragedy is when I cut my finger, comedy is when you fall down a well and die. The point of this saying is, of course, that there is some selfishness in comedy. "It's funny cause I don't know him," to quote Homer Simpson laughing at a video of people getting injured. This is the essential truth behind superiority theory: if we feel above something, it is easier to laugh at it.

I think, however, the more important insight here is really one about tragedy: tragedy is the original genre of "first world problems." Everything seems tragic when you have no perspective. The smallest little things take on world-historical importance. The attitude of comedy is a different one. Of course, this is not to knock Hamlet as a play about a selfish little brat. But isn't Hamlet kind of a selfish little brat? His tragedy is that he gets too caught up in his own personal drama. Tragedy depicts someone in the grips of some personal crisis and shows how these tiny things can destroy a person. We feel the classic tragic emotions, terror and pity, not laughter, when we see someone going through this ordeal.

At the same time, there is a proximity between tragedy and comedy because both depict "tragic" things. The difference is one of attitude. The tragic person can never take tragic pleasure in his or her situation. It seems overwhelming and suffocating. It is tragedy that actually requires distance from the tragic situation, not comedy. Tragedy depicts someone being overwhelmed and consumed by misfortune. You could even argue that tragedy is the response to a situation we adopt when laughter is not possible but we still require some relief. If the person suffering cannot demonstrate resolve, then we cannot laugh, but we can mirror the pain. The point of this is to provide solidarity and perhaps, the beginning of a new attitude. It is not unlike how a caring parent will mirror the misfortune of a child: if the kid spills something and is embarrassed, then a parent will spill something too in order to create a sense of shared adversity. It is at this point that tears turn to laughter. This is why many funerals feature as much laughter as they do crying. Tragedy, I would argue, is a precursor to comedy, one that seeks to restore a sense of safety and solidarity to an unsafe and lonely situation.

In the case of tragedy proper in a work of art, we do not feel the sense of total relief because we cannot witness the other person "snapping out of it" and finding relief in our shared solidarity. Tragedy, then, is a later, more artificial, more inorganic reaction to the world that is predicated on the distance of viewership and the situation of the theater. There is nothing wrong with this, of course, but it is necessary to remember that the notion of a "pure" sadness is really a somewhat unnatural condition. It isolates and develops one moment of the cycle of morning and sadness. Comedy, by contrast, looks at the total situation. It depicts resilience and rebellion in the face of tragic situations. With comedy, the most horrifying indignities and misfortunes can be funny. This is the essential truth behind comedy and its refusal to give in to the laws of reality. It says: my dad died this morning, my grandma died this afternoon, but on the plus side I just found twenty dollars! who wants pizza?!

The role of tragedy is not to cancel this laughter but to restore a note of seriousness into its levity. It is easy for comedy to turn into an unwillingness to face up to problems and to avoid facing unpleasant feelings. Tragedy prevents comedy from becoming a defense. It forces the comic attitude to confront and feel deep pain before it returns to its carefree attitude. It returns a note of vulnerability and reflectiveness to the comic universe, but I would contend that it is still very much part of the larger comic universe, rather than comedy being a respite from a larger and essentially tragic universe.

Tragedy and comedy have a close relationship, but no one would claim that tragedy is culturally specific. For whatever reason, however, they claim that comedy is culturally specific. Why is this? The same subjects are the fodder for both comedy and tragedy: sex and death. The difference is not the material, but the attitude toward the material. This is the problem with the third truism: it begins with a very limited notion of comedy, one that excludes most of its typical subjects. It is not surprising, then, that it would find the result that it was looking for. Comedy is a form of resilience and resistance, and there is no better example of this than its refusal to comply with the rules we establish for it.

And just like that, I blew up all the conventional wisdom ...

Essay 1 - Comedy, debates, and details

In this initial paper we will practice the first crucial feature of academic writing to master: focus. For the assignment, pick a specific reading from class, or another work that discusses or presents comedy, and locate a significant detail: an element that seems important but whose significance you cannot initially fully explain. In an essay of approximately 1000-1500 words, offer an explicit account of why you think this detail is important. The most important thing for this essay is that you remain focused on the detail and your account of it. Support your claims with concrete features of the work. While you can discuss other relevant aspects of the work, the key is to discuss those other aspects in terms of the main detail. 

Your paper should feature a strong, refutable, significant thesis. The thesis should possess all of the components we've discussed in class (clear topic; focusing question; central claim; a connection to and role in a larger debate or conversation; clearly defined key concepts; organized evidence; and a strong sense of significance).You can approach the assignment using either of the two types of comedy analysis we have discussed: dissecting the work as a piece of comedy by using some of the theories we have read; or revealing how comedy itself reveals important truths. Be as specific as you can in posing your questions. Instead of trying to show, for example, which theory of comedy explains why the work is funny, instead focus on mapping all the features of incongruity theory onto one moment: what are the two ideas contrasted, how are they contrasted, and what does this contrast show? Instead of arguing that a piece of comedy mocks hypocrisy, again, be very focused: map out in explicit terms what the character appears to be, what he or she really is, and what the significance of this deception is. 

You may write about the novel we will read, about a clip we have watched, or about any other thing we have read or watched in class. You may also pick almost anything else of interest to you (run the topic by me if you have any doubts or questions about it). If you are unsure what to write about, then pick something from the class.

As with all college writing, what you write about is less important than how you write about it, and it is this latter skill we are attempting to master. The most important thing for this assignment is to focus in on a very specific feature of the work you are writing about, hone in on a narrow topic and question it suggests, and provide a strong, refutable claim in answer to it. The point of this exercise is to practice framing narrow questions and topics; making significant, specific, refutable, non-trivial claims about them; and to support those claims with specific bits of textual or detailed evidence.

Have a posible topic picked out for a writing exercise on Friday, September 14th. Bring a rough draft to class for Friday, September 21th. The paper is due Friday, September 28th, at noon.

Some model blogs

I am not sure why this meme uses a Stormtrooper

For your blog posts, feel free to follow your interests and passions, even if you see only a tenuous connection to some of the main topics we have discussed so far. All I ask is that the blog posts draw our attention to a piece of writing, a clip, a news article, or even an excerpt from a novel or other longer work, and provide your take on that: why is it significant? What makes it meaningful for you? What do you want others to understand about it? Feel free to interpret comedy in the broadest possible sense: you can blog about not only things that are intentionally meant to be funny, but things that are unintentionally funny, or anything else that presents an interesting incongruity, unexpected detail, or surprising feature that is worth comment.

I'm always a bit hesitant to provide models, because there's no set formula for writing these posts. The following are just some examples of different things you could do, and you should feel free to ignore them if they are not interesting or appealing, for they are not at all the only way of approaching the subject.

Here is an example of a fun post on a very dry topic--typography--that nonetheless points out the unexpected beauties of a classic film (not exactly comedy, but an attention to the little details, which is often a key feature of comedy).

This post is a smart and silly critique of the unintentional comedy and inanities of popular culture.

Here's an example of a music review of an old album of an old band from my hometown that more or less became The Shins. It's not exactly an analysis of something comedic, but it is an insightful review that points out some interesting and unexpected details in its own way.

Of course, best and worst lists can always be a fun way to do a blog post.

You can go with something light and silly on college life or other close-to-home topics. Hey, it may seem a bit informal, but it actually does a very nice job of closely analyzing the language in the emails, albeit in a goofy way.

And of course, you can always try to elevate the dialogue when it comes to current events. You know, like this guy. It takes a very high IQ to understand this guy.

Lead blogger sign up sheet for 4pm course

Post the week you want, along with the address of your blog, in the comments section of this post. Spots are distributed on a first-come, first-served basis.

Lead blog posts are due the Friday of the week before we discuss them.

September 7: Alex (alexcomedyblog.blogspot.com)

Sept 14: Jake (jake6blog.blogspot.com)

Sept. 21: Katherine (katscomedyblog.blogspot.com)

Sept. 28: Alexis (alexisfywblog.blogspot.com)

Oct. 5: Caroline (carolinebasscomedyblog.blogspot.com)

Oct. 12: Paige (turnthepaige3.blogspot.com)

Oct. 19: Lucy (lucywaszak.blogspot.com)

Oct. 26: Faith (faithcomedyblog.blogspot.com)

Nov. 2: Lindsey (laughswithlindsey.blogspot.com)

Nov. 9: Hannah (humortheories.blogspot.com)

Nov. 23: Theo (theofyw.blogspot.com)

Nov. 30: Jane (laughwithjane.blogspot.com)

Lead blogger sign up sheet for 2:30 course

Post the week you want, along with the address of your blog, in the comments section of this post.n Spots are distributed on a first-come, first-served basis.

Lead blog posts are due the Friday of the week before we discuss them.

September 7: Chris (chrislogsdonfyw.blogspot.com)

Sept 14: Matthew (matthewsfyw.blogspot.com)

Sept. 21: Julia (juliasfywblog.blogspot.com)

Sept. 28: Zach (zachbuddiesblogiguess.blogspot.com)

Oct. 5: Nikoleta (nikoletatesta.blogspot.com)

Oct. 12: Kaitlin (kaitlinramsden.blogspot.com)

Oct. 19: Abby (abigailfyw.blogspot.com)

Oct. 26: Katie (katiemarieowen.blogspot.com)

Nov. 2: Tyler (tdemsheck.blogspot.com)

Nov. 9: Faith (haubergfyw.blogspot.com)

Nov. 23: Lola (friedpickle77.blogspot.com)

Nov. 30: Jack (fywjackstarr.blogspot.com)

Lead blogger sign up sheet for 1:30 course

Post the week you want, along with the address of your blog, in the comments section of this post.n Spots are distributed on a first-come, first-served basis.

Lead blog posts are due the Friday of the week before we discuss them.

September 7: Alyssa (alyssacomedyblog.blogspot.com)

Sept 14: Sonali (sonalijpatel.blogspot.com)

Sept. 21: Ryan (rwcomedyblog.blogspot.com)

Sept. 28: Will (wwagnerfyw.wordpress.com)

Oct. 5: Caroline (carolinecomedyblog.blogspot.com)

Oct. 12: Madelyn (Madelynfyw.blogspot.com)

Oct. 19: Ellery (ellerysblogfyw.blogspot.com)

Oct. 26: Trace (tracesfyw.blogspot.com)

Nov. 2: Kyndal (kandersoncomedy.blogspot.com)

Nov. 9: Hill (hilldouglasfyw.blogspot.com)

Nov. 23: Catherine (catherinescomedyblog.blogspot.com)

Nov. 30: Ashly (ashlyscomedy.wordpress.com)

Welcome! Here is our course schedule, updated in real time.

After the first few weeks, the assignment for each Wednesday also includes reading and responding to the lead blogger, and the assignment for each Friday includes reading and commenting on your peers’ blogs. From time to time I may move readings around or replace them to more closely coincide with the class’s current interests. Watch this blog for these updates. All schedule changes will be posted here. I will only update the Moodle syllabus in the rare event of a course policy change. Although I will try to post an updated version of the schedule online as quickly as possible, you are responsible for all changes announced in class.

Course schedule:

Week 1: Introductions
M: August 26

W 28: Introduction.

Other activities: Start blog

F 30: Watch: Monty Python, Argument Clinic sketch.

Read: “Theories of Humor" and Nancy Sommers, Revision Strategies

Other activities: Start blog, email me the link, and select a date to serve as lead blogger. Post your first blog entry on the best piece of comedy you’ve seen recently (post the link or describe it), and whether you feel the reading helps you understand the work or its ideas.

Week 2 – Superiority, Incongruity, Relief: Theories of the Comic
M Sep. 2: Labor Day. No Class.

W 4: Read: Lippitt

Other activities: Write a blog post on which account you find most persuasive, and use another example of comedy to illustrate your claims. Do the theories just describe different types of comedy, or does one get closer to the essence (and why aren’t all examples of incongruity, superiority, or relief funny?)

F Sep. 6: Read: Lippitt

Week 3 – Peer Editing
M 9: Read Lippitt.

W 11: Blog discussion

Other activities: Post your response to the lead blogger’s post for all Wednesday classes. We will usually discuss the lead blog and the piece of comedy it analyzes on Wednesdays. We will also usually discuss some shorter readings to guide our discussion.

F 13: Read McGraw and Warner.

Other activities: Read each other’s posts and leave comments for each Friday class. Fridays we will continue our discussions of your blogs, focusing on your responses to each other. Highlighting the work of classmates during our discussion is an excellent way to participate. We will also use Fridays for activities such as peer editing or discussing an additional reading or a film.

Week 4 – Comedy and Politics
M 16: Read: “Waiting for the Conservative Jon Stewart.”

W 18: Blog discussion

F 20: Bring rough draft for peer editing.

Week 5 – When are We “Just Joking”?
M 23: Read: This Article on Trump’s Humor

W 25: Blog discussion

F 27: Paper 1 due. Writing workshop or possible library day.

Week 6 – Incongruity Theory’s Founding Father
M Sept. 30: Read: Hutcheson, “Thoughts on Laughter”

W 2: Blog discussion

F 4: Writing workshop or other activity TBA.

Week 7 – Great Job
M Oct. 7: Reading/Viewing TBA or Possible library day

W 9: Blog Discussion

F 11: Bring rough draft for peer editing.

Week 8 – All Your Breaks are Belong to Us
M 14: Fall break. No class.

W 16: Blog discussion

F 18: Paper 2 due. Writing workshop or library day.

Week 9 – Genres: Irony and Satire
M 21: Read The Irony of Satire

W 23: Blog discussion

F 25: Writing workshop or other activity TBA.

Week 10 – Comedy and Tragedy
M 28: Read: Zupancic

W 30: Blog discussion

F Nov. 1: Bring rough draft of paper 3.

Week 11 – We Live in a Society
M 4: Read Article on Gang Weed

W 6: Blog discussion

F 8: Paper 3 due. Writing workshop or other activity TBA.

Week 12 – Throwing Your Old Car Battery Into the Ocean
M 11: Read article on Tide Pod Memes and Article on Millennial Humor

W 13: Blog discussion

F 15: Bring Rough Draft of Paper

Week 13 – It’s Free Real Estate
M 18: Read: Article on Meme Warand Article on Memes and Politics

W 20: Blog Discussion

F 22: Bring rough draft of paper.

Week 14 – Wait for it…
M 25: Read: Article on Memes and Dadaism

W 27: Thanksgiving break

F 29: Thanksgiving break

Week 15 – Recovering from Steamed hams
M Dec. 2: Read: Zupancic

W 4: Bring draft.

F Dec. 6: Bring draft.

Week 16 – Press F
M 9: Last class.

W 11: Study day.

F 13: Final exams.