Essay 1 - Comedy, details, debates

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 explaining 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, 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 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.

You are only limited in your topic selection by one factor: your paper should have some connection to what we have discussed. Other than that, you are free to pick whatever you want to write about. If you are having a hard time thinking up a topic, consider some of the following prompts.

1. The classic analytical paper: apply concept x to work of art/literature/film y. For this assignment, you want to pick two significant details: one from a work of comedy (or another relevant example)  and one from one of the theoretical examples we have read. The trick to this kind of paper is showing not just that you can apply the theory but why this is the best theory to apply. What do we learn by applying this theory as opposed to others? How does it help answer the “so what?” question?

2. Write a short treatise laying out your own theory of comedy. The trick to this kind of paper is showing why your theory helps us understand something the other theories do not explain. Bring in significant details to help do this.

3. Explain some specific event through the lens of comedy theory. Part of answering the question of why studying comedy is significant is showing what we can learn from comedy theory. Can we explain a political or social phenomenon using comedy theory?

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 supporting those claims with specific bits of textual or detailed evidence.

Have a posible topic picked out for a writing exercise on Friday, September 13th.  Bring a rough draft to class for Friday, September 20th. The paper is due Friday, September 27th at 5pm.