Professor Steven Amarnick
College Now Course: The Comic Spirit in Literature and Culture
Course Description:
This course will explore the function of comedy in a variety of works. Though the main focus will be on short stories and drama, you will look at the use of humor in many different forms of both “low” and “high” culture. You will also explore how humor functions in texts that range from those that are explicitly comedic (The Importance of Being Earnest) to those that are quite serious, tragic even (“A Good Man Is Hard to Find”), but that still contain a perhaps surprising amount of comedic elements. Moreover, you will generate your own theories of comedy at the same time as you are exposed to brief excerpted theories. There will be three class trips: to the Museum of Modern Art, to Broadway to see the play Well, and to the Brooklyn Academy of Music to see a production of The Importance of Being Earnest. Through reading, class discussion, oral presentations, extensive journal writing, and other forms of writing, including one creative project partially modeled on what you have read, you will develop the ability to look deeply at texts and to articulate your ideas.
Informal Writing:
All, or nearly all, classes will include writing. Sometimes this will mean quizzes based on the reading. At other times you will write in your journals in preparation for class discussion. You will also do inkshedding, in which you write for a few minutes, then pass your paper to a classmate who responds, who then passes the paper to a third writer who responds; and there will be various other writing activities.
Class Trips:
Museum of Modern Art – Wednesday, March 1, 2006.
Broadway (Lisa Kron’s Well) – Saturday afternoon, March 25, 2006.
Brooklyn Academy of Music (performance of The Importance of Being Earnest) – Saturday afternoon, April 29, 2006.
Grading:
Classwork and Journals (includes journal writing done at home and in class; other informal in-class writing; class participation; quizzes; oral presentation on short story): 40 percent.
Creative assignment (detailed storyboard of a short story, play, or illustrated children’s book, either a prequel, sequel, or updated version of something we have read in class; or a story, play, or illustrated children’s book inspired by one of the paintings we explore at MOMA. Grade to be based on effort, including willingness to revise, not on talent): 20 percent.
Midterm: essay based on Lisa Kron’s Well: 20 percent.
Final exam (includes character identifications, short answer questions identifying quotations and analyzing them, and an essay): 20 percent.
Unit 1
What makes aspects of a text (defined broadly) humorous? What do we as readers or listeners or observers need to know to “get” the humor? Why do so-called serious artists use comedy in their work?
First day of class: cartoon interviews. You will be given a cartoon from The New Yorker magazine, and will go around the classroom doing a focused interview. What do you think of this cartoon? Do you find it humorous in any way? Why or why not?
Thereafter:
You will bring in something (anything that can be shared quickly, like an ad or comic strip or T shirt or short poem or song) that you find humorous and make a brief presentation about it.
The Simpsons, “Bart Gets an F”
Poetry by Shel Silverstein: “Messy Room,” “Melinda Mae,” “The Dragon of Grindly Grun,” “Anteater,” and “Sick”
Songs: “I’m Calm” (from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum‘)
“Old McDonald Had a Farm,” sung by Frank Sinatra
“Miss Otis Regrets,” Cole Porter (sung by Bette Midler)
“I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” sung by the Jackson Five
“Teenage Lobotomy,” the Ramones
“I’m Too Sexy,” Right Said Fred
Children’s fiction: Amelia Bedelia, by Peggy Parish
Short story: “Good Country People,” by Flannery O’Connor
Art: Visit to Museum of Modern Art (MOMA).
Unit 2
Well, by Lisa Kron
In this part of the semester we will begin to talk more explicitly about basic literary terms-the kinds used in a typical Introduction to Literature course.
You will have done much informal writing by this point, analyzing aspects of the texts and linking the texts to your personal experience. Your analytical essay will bring these strands together in a more polished piece about Lisa Kron’s Well. Two possibilities: to talk about your own concepts of wellness and compare those concepts to those of Kron and her mother in the play; or to discuss what you imagine a healthy parent-child relationship would be like once the child is an adult, and to explore whether Kron and her mother indeed have such a healthy relationship in the play.
Portions of these classes will be devoted to acting out scenes from the play.
Unit 3
The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde
As we use Wilde’s play to further our exploration of the importance of imagination, you will begin your creative projects. You will brainstorm ideas as you consult with me and one another.
You will also be offered an opportunity to revise your midterm essays and will continue to write informally at home and in class.
Portions of these classes will be devoted to acting out scenes from the play.
Unit 4
Short stories plus brief oral presentations (from The Story and Its Writers, Sixth Edition, Ann Charters)
“Girl,” Jamaica Kincaid
“Everything That Rises Must Converge,” Flannery O’Connor
“A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” Flannery O’Connor
“Why I Live at the P.O.,” Eudora Welty ”
The Man Who Was Almost a Man,” Richard Wright
(The class will choose from among the following):
“The Kugelmass Episode,” Woody Allen
“The Overcoat,” Nikolai Gogol
“Rip Van Winkle,” Washington Irving
“How to Become a Writer,” Lorrie Moore
“A Conversation with My Father,” Grace Paley
“The Conversion of the Jews,” Philip Roth
“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” James Thurber
“The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” Mark Twain
“Harrison Bergeron,” Kurt Vonnegut
Oral presentations
You will also share drafts of your creative projects, and for those who wish to participate, we will print up the final storyboards in a class magazine.
