Description
“Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.” — Charlie Chaplin
Plato saw humor as a lowbrow form of cruelty, an expression of superiority, a kind of pleasure mixed with malice. Contemporary comics and humorists like John Oliver, Wanda Sykes, Matt Stone, George Saunders or Patricia Lockwood might say humor is the very angle into dismantling hypocrisy and cultural forms of oppression, and one of the most effective modes of removing moral blind spots and promoting democratic debate. Tig Notaro, Patton Oswalt, and Mel Brooks might argue that humor helps us to endure rather than to suffer, to laugh at death, tragedy, and senseless brutality instead of becoming overwhelmed with dread and victimhood. And Hannah Gadsby or Lynda Barry might say that humor is the very gateway into confronting avoidance; a kick in the pants to come clean with who we are and who we want to become. In this reading-intensive course, we will study traditional and nontraditional theories of