Spring 2018 | CSCL 3175 Section 001: Comedy: Text and Theory (51287)
- Instructor(s)
- Class Component:
- Lecture
- Credits:
- 3 Credits
- Grading Basis:
- Student Option
- Instructor Consent:
- No Special Consent Required
- Instruction Mode:
- In Person Term Based
- Class Attributes:
- UMNTC Liberal Education Requirement
- Times and Locations:
- Regular Academic Session01/16/2018 - 05/04/2018Tue, Thu 09:45AM - 11:00AMUMTC, East BankNicholson Hall 35
- Enrollment Status:
- Open (50 of 60 seats filled)
- Course Catalog Description:
- Comedy as a discursive/political practice. Jokes, stand-up routines, plays, films, satire, and social ritual. Philosophical, literary, psychological, anthropological, feminist, and postmodern theory.
- Class Description:
What makes some jokes so funny? Is comedy just an outlet for escapism, or can laughter effect real social change? In this course, we will approach the topic of comedy from every angle, while also keeping the humor alive. We will read philosophies and theories of comedy, satirical newspapers, and social histories of stand-up. We will watch comedic movies, TV shows, Internet memes, viral videos, and talk about them. And, of course, we will write and perform our own comedy in the classroom. By studying the history and formations of comedy - from the devices of funny gags, to the social politics of laughing bodies - we will appreciate the immense power and influence that these forces of hilarity hold over all of us, as well as their untapped potentials to help us understand the past, to navigate the present, and to reimagine the future.
- Textbooks:
- https://bookstores.umn.edu/course-lookup/51287/1183
- Instructor Supplied Information Last Updated:
- 15 December 2017
Fall 2017 | CSCL 3175 Section 001: Comedy: Text and Theory (17411)
- Instructor(s)
- Class Component:
- Lecture
- Credits:
- 3 Credits
- Grading Basis:
- Student Option
- Instructor Consent:
- No Special Consent Required
- Instruction Mode:
- In Person Term Based
- Class Attributes:
- UMNTC Liberal Education Requirement
- Times and Locations:
- Regular Academic Session09/05/2017 - 12/13/2017Tue, Thu 02:30PM - 03:45PMUMTC, East BankPillsbury Hall 110
- Course Catalog Description:
- Comedy as a discursive/political practice. Jokes, stand-up routines, plays, films, satire, and social ritual. Philosophical, literary, psychological, anthropological, feminist, and postmodern theory.
- Class Notes:
- http://classinfo.umn.edu/?CSCL3175+Fall2016
- Class Description:
- Comedy is not necessarily the same as being funny. Comedy is also not necessarily the polar opposite of tragedy. Comedy can please, but comedy can also hurt. Comedy can support a status quo, but also violently subvert it. Comedy can be a discourse, a metadiscourse, a philosophy, even a way of life. What is it, then? Where can we find it and why? This course will provide discussions and definitions of the comedic, as well as close examinations of its various incarnations in texts of drama, literature, philosophy, television and film. Throughout the semester, we will examine questions such as: How can we trace the often hidden movements and allocations of power in the comedic? What kinds of pleasures does the comedic allow? When does comedy hurt and why? What are the crosspolinations between the political and the comedic? Laughter, the joke, satire, irony, sarcasm, the carnivalesque, the grotesque and transgression will be some of the many important terms we will cover, aiming not only to define them, but more importantly, to see and understand them at work in key environments.
- Textbooks:
- https://bookstores.umn.edu/course-lookup/17411/1179
- Instructor Supplied Information Last Updated:
- 22 October 2015
Spring 2017 | CSCL 3175 Section 001: Comedy: Text and Theory (51986)
- Instructor(s)
- Class Component:
- Lecture
- Credits:
- 3 Credits
- Grading Basis:
- Student Option
- Instructor Consent:
- No Special Consent Required
- Instruction Mode:
- In Person Term Based
- Class Attributes:
- UMNTC Liberal Education Requirement
- Times and Locations:
- Regular Academic Session01/17/2017 - 05/05/2017Mon, Wed 02:30PM - 03:45PMUMTC, East BankRapson Hall 56
- Course Catalog Description:
- Comedy as a discursive/political practice. Jokes, stand-up routines, plays, films, satire, and social ritual. Philosophical, literary, psychological, anthropological, feminist, and postmodern theory.
- Class Description:
In CSCL 3175, we will think critically about comedy (especially as it shapes visual culture, narrative texts, and social politics), while also sustaining comedy's inherent jubilee. Given the saturation of all levels of our cultural and critical discourse by humor and laughter (from the fine arts to presidential politics), it is more important than ever that we have effective tools for understanding how comedy shapes our thoughts, the stories we tell each other, and our everyday lives and experiences.
- Textbooks:
- https://bookstores.umn.edu/course-lookup/51986/1173
- Instructor Supplied Information Last Updated:
- 22 October 2015
Fall 2016 | CSCL 3175 Section 001: Comedy: Text and Theory (18125)
- Instructor(s)
- Class Component:
- Lecture
- Credits:
- 3 Credits
- Grading Basis:
- Student Option
- Instructor Consent:
- No Special Consent Required
- Instruction Mode:
- In Person Term Based
- Class Attributes:
- UMNTC Liberal Education Requirement
- Times and Locations:
- Regular Academic Session09/06/2016 - 12/14/2016Tue, Thu 02:30PM - 03:45PMUMTC, East BankNicholson Hall 125
- Course Catalog Description:
- Comedy as a discursive/political practice. Jokes, stand-up routines, plays, films, satire, and social ritual. Philosophical, literary, psychological, anthropological, feminist, and postmodern theory.
- Class Notes:
- http://classinfo.umn.edu/?CSCL3175+Fall2016
- Class Description:
- Comedy is not necessarily the same as being funny. Comedy is also not necessarily the polar opposite of tragedy. Comedy can please, but comedy can also hurt. Comedy can support a status quo, but also violently subvert it. Comedy can be a discourse, a metadiscourse, a philosophy, even a way of life. What is it, then? Where can we find it and why? This course will provide discussions and definitions of the comedic, as well as close examinations of its various incarnations in texts of drama, literature, philosophy, television and film. Throughout the semester, we will examine questions such as: How can we trace the often hidden movements and allocations of power in the comedic? What kinds of pleasures does the comedic allow? When does comedy hurt and why? What are the crosspolinations between the political and the comedic? Laughter, the joke, satire, irony, sarcasm, the carnivalesque, the grotesque and transgression will be some of the many important terms we will cover, aiming not only to define them, but more importantly, to see and understand them at work in key environments.
- Textbooks:
- https://bookstores.umn.edu/course-lookup/18125/1169
- Instructor Supplied Information Last Updated:
- 22 October 2015
Spring 2016 | CSCL 3175 Section 001: Comedy: Text and Theory (57787)
- Instructor(s)
- Class Component:
- Lecture
- Credits:
- 3 Credits
- Grading Basis:
- Student Option
- Instructor Consent:
- No Special Consent Required
- Instruction Mode:
- In Person Term Based
- Class Attributes:
- UMNTC Liberal Education Requirement
- Times and Locations:
- Regular Academic Session01/19/2016 - 05/06/2016Mon, Wed 04:00PM - 05:15PMUMTC, East BankNicholson Hall 155
- Course Catalog Description:
- Comedy as a discursive/political practice. Jokes, stand-up routines, plays, films, satire, and social ritual. Philosophical, literary, psychological, anthropological, feminist, and postmodern theory.
- Class Notes:
- http://classinfo.umn.edu/?mhennefe+CSCL3175+Spring2016
- Class Description:
In CSCL 3175, we will think critically about comedy (especially as it shapes visual culture, narrative texts, and social politics), while also sustaining comedy's inherent jubilee. Given the saturation of all levels of our cultural and critical discourse by humor and laughter (from the fine arts to presidential politics), it is more important than ever that we have effective tools for understanding how comedy shapes our thoughts, the stories we tell each other, and our everyday lives and experiences.
- Textbooks:
- https://bookstores.umn.edu/course-lookup/57787/1163
- Instructor Supplied Information Last Updated:
- 22 October 2015
Fall 2015 | CSCL 3175 Section 001: Comedy: Text and Theory (33858)
- Instructor(s)
- Class Component:
- Lecture
- Credits:
- 3 Credits
- Grading Basis:
- Student Option
- Instructor Consent:
- No Special Consent Required
- Instruction Mode:
- In Person Term Based
- Class Attributes:
- UMNTC Liberal Education Requirement
- Times and Locations:
- Regular Academic Session09/08/2015 - 12/16/2015Tue, Thu 09:45AM - 11:00AMUMTC, West BankAnderson Hall 370
- Course Catalog Description:
- Comedy as a discursive/political practice. Jokes, stand-up routines, plays, films, satire, and social ritual. Philosophical, literary, psychological, anthropological, feminist, and postmodern theory.
- Class Notes:
- http://classinfo.umn.edu/?CSCL3175+Fall2015
- Class Description:
- Course Description: CSCL 3175 investigates comedy and the comic as mechanisms of pleasure, as modes of discourse and metadiscourse, as narratives incorporating the extremes of violent subversion and utopian salvation, and ultimately as a way of being in the world: comedy, in other words, as a philosophy and as a way of life. We'll explore a wide range of comic phenomena, ?dirty? to ?divine,? flatulence to afflatus, scatology to eschatology ? something, that is, not only to edify but also to delight and (it is sincerely hoped) offend everybody. And we'll have some fun along the way. We will, in short, take comedy seriously ? while taking the serious issues to which it relates in the fullest comic spirit. Caveat Emptor: The course will gleefully and wildly swing between ?high philosophy? and ?low filth?: we are here to play, to explore, even to mock and deride?but never at the expense of a productive dialogue. We will read ourselves as we read these texts, hopefully to learn as much about the texts from which we derive pleasure as we learn about ourselves and the structures of meaning and discourse in which we exist and act. We will weave through, dig into, and play within the following questions: What are the sources of comic pleasure, the causes of laughter? What are the psychic and social ends of comedy? What is the necessary relation between comedy, violence, and cruelty? What is comedy's relation to play, ritual, sports and games, festivals, holidays, and religion? How does the human body ? its desires, its physical processes, its secretions and excretions, its decay and death ? function in comic discourse? What are some of the principal narrative modes of comedy? How are comic pleasures mobilized to persuade, educate, and communicate values; to reproduce, reinforce, or subvert authority, asymmetrical power relations and the ideologies on which they depend? What is it about comedy that renders it so politically useful? Why do gender and the conventions of the theater (e.g., role-playing, performance, and archetypal formations) figure so prominently in comedy? What fears and anxieties, monsters and grotesques lurk beneath the festive surfaces and masks of the comic? And finally: what can we make of comedy today, in what H. Frankfurt has identified as ?the age and culture of B.S.?? Did I mention that this will be fun, too? No joke here. Seriously.
- Textbooks:
- https://bookstores.umn.edu/course-lookup/33858/1159
- Instructor Supplied Information Last Updated:
- 23 March 2015
Spring 2015 | CSCL 3175 Section 001: Comedy: Text and Theory (58929)
- Instructor(s)
- Class Component:
- Lecture
- Credits:
- 3 Credits
- Grading Basis:
- Student Option
- Instructor Consent:
- No Special Consent Required
- Instruction Mode:
- In Person Term Based
- Class Attributes:
- UMNTC Liberal Education RequirementDelivery Medium
- Times and Locations:
- Regular Academic Session01/20/2015 - 05/08/2015Tue, Thu 02:30PM - 03:45PMUMTC, East BankNicholson Hall 155
- Course Catalog Description:
- Comedy as a discursive/political practice. Jokes, stand-up routines, plays, films, satire, and social ritual. Philosophical, literary, psychological, anthropological, feminist, and postmodern theory.
- Class Description:
- Comedy is not necessarily the same as being funny. Comedy is also not necessarily the polar opposite of tragedy. Comedy can please, but comedy can also hurt. Comedy can support a status quo, but also violently subvert it. Comedy can be a discourse, a metadiscourse, a philosophy, even a way of life. What is it, then? Where can we find it and why? This course will provide discussions and definitions of the comedic, as well as close examinations of its various incarnations in texts of drama, literature, philosophy, television and film. Throughout the semester, we will examine questions such as: How can we trace the often hidden movements and allocations of power in the comedic? What kinds of pleasures does the comedic allow? When does comedy hurt and why? What are the crosspolinations between the political and the comedic? Laughter, the joke, satire, irony, sarcasm, the carnivalesque, the grotesque and transgression will be some of the many important terms we will cover, aiming not only to define them, but more importantly, to see and understand them at work in key environments.
- Textbooks:
- https://bookstores.umn.edu/course-lookup/58929/1153
- Instructor Supplied Information Last Updated:
- 21 January 2015
Spring 2014 | CSCL 3175 Section 001: Comedy: Text and Theory (64819)
- Instructor(s)
- Class Component:
- Lecture
- Credits:
- 3 Credits
- Grading Basis:
- Student Option
- Instructor Consent:
- No Special Consent Required
- Instruction Mode:
- In Person Term Based
- Class Attributes:
- UMNTC Liberal Education RequirementDelivery Medium
- Times and Locations:
- Regular Academic Session01/21/2014 - 05/09/2014Tue, Thu 02:30PM - 03:45PMUMTC, East BankNicholson Hall 275
- Course Catalog Description:
- Comedy as a discursive/political practice. Jokes, stand-up routines, plays, films, satire, and social ritual. Philosophical, literary, psychological, anthropological, feminist, and postmodern theory.
- Class Description:
- Course Description: CSCL 3175 investigates comedy and the comic as mechanisms of pleasure, as modes of discourse and metadiscourse, as narratives incorporating the extremes of violent subversion and utopian salvation, and ultimately as a way of being in the world: comedy, in other words, as a philosophy and as a way of life. We'll explore a wide range of comic phenomena, ?dirty? to ?divine,? flatulence to afflatus, scatology to eschatology ? something, that is, not only to edify but also to delight and (it is sincerely hoped) offend everybody. And we'll have some fun along the way. We will, in short, take comedy seriously ? while taking the serious issues to which it relates in the fullest comic spirit. Caveat Emptor: The course will gleefully and wildly swing between ?high philosophy? and ?low filth?: we are here to play, to explore, even to mock and deride?but never at the expense of a productive dialogue. We will read ourselves as we read these texts, hopefully to learn as much about the texts from which we derive pleasure as we learn about ourselves and the structures of meaning and discourse in which we exist and act. We will weave through, dig into, and play within the following questions: What are the sources of comic pleasure, the causes of laughter? What are the psychic and social ends of comedy? What is the necessary relation between comedy, violence, and cruelty? What is comedy's relation to play, ritual, sports and games, festivals, holidays, and religion? How does the human body ? its desires, its physical processes, its secretions and excretions, its decay and death ? function in comic discourse? What are some of the principal narrative modes of comedy? How are comic pleasures mobilized to persuade, educate, and communicate values; to reproduce, reinforce, or subvert authority, asymmetrical power relations and the ideologies on which they depend? What is it about comedy that renders it so politically useful? Why do gender and the conventions of the theater (e.g., role-playing, performance, and archetypal formations) figure so prominently in comedy? What fears and anxieties, monsters and grotesques lurk beneath the festive surfaces and masks of the comic? And finally: what can we make of comedy today, in what H. Frankfurt has identified as ?the age and culture of B.S.?? Did I mention that this will be fun, too? No joke here. Seriously.
- Textbooks:
- https://bookstores.umn.edu/course-lookup/64819/1143
- Instructor Supplied Information Last Updated:
- 1 November 2007
Spring 2013 | CSCL 3175 Section 001: Comedy: Text and Theory (66903)
- Instructor(s)
- Class Component:
- Lecture
- Credits:
- 3 Credits
- Grading Basis:
- Student Option
- Instructor Consent:
- No Special Consent Required
- Instruction Mode:
- In Person Term Based
- Class Attributes:
- UMNTC Liberal Education RequirementDelivery Medium
- Times and Locations:
- Regular Academic Session01/22/2013 - 05/10/2013Tue, Thu 02:30PM - 03:45PMUMTC, East BankTate Laboratory of Physics 133
- Course Catalog Description:
- Comedy as a discursive/political practice. Jokes, stand-up routines, plays, films, satire, and social ritual. Philosophical, literary, psychological, anthropological, feminist, and postmodern theory.
- Class Description:
- Course Description: CSCL 3175 investigates comedy and the comic as mechanisms of pleasure, as modes of discourse and metadiscourse, as narratives incorporating the extremes of violent subversion and utopian salvation, and ultimately as a way of being in the world: comedy, in other words, as a philosophy and as a way of life. We'll explore a wide range of comic phenomena, ?dirty? to ?divine,? flatulence to afflatus, scatology to eschatology ? something, that is, not only to edify but also to delight and (it is sincerely hoped) offend everybody. And we'll have some fun along the way. We will, in short, take comedy seriously ? while taking the serious issues to which it relates in the fullest comic spirit. Caveat Emptor: The course will gleefully and wildly swing between ?high philosophy? and ?low filth?: we are here to play, to explore, even to mock and deride?but never at the expense of a productive dialogue. We will read ourselves as we read these texts, hopefully to learn as much about the texts from which we derive pleasure as we learn about ourselves and the structures of meaning and discourse in which we exist and act. We will weave through, dig into, and play within the following questions: What are the sources of comic pleasure, the causes of laughter? What are the psychic and social ends of comedy? What is the necessary relation between comedy, violence, and cruelty? What is comedy's relation to play, ritual, sports and games, festivals, holidays, and religion? How does the human body ? its desires, its physical processes, its secretions and excretions, its decay and death ? function in comic discourse? What are some of the principal narrative modes of comedy? How are comic pleasures mobilized to persuade, educate, and communicate values; to reproduce, reinforce, or subvert authority, asymmetrical power relations and the ideologies on which they depend? What is it about comedy that renders it so politically useful? Why do gender and the conventions of the theater (e.g., role-playing, performance, and archetypal formations) figure so prominently in comedy? What fears and anxieties, monsters and grotesques lurk beneath the festive surfaces and masks of the comic? And finally: what can we make of comedy today, in what H. Frankfurt has identified as ?the age and culture of B.S.?? Did I mention that this will be fun, too? No joke here. Seriously.
- Textbooks:
- https://bookstores.umn.edu/course-lookup/66903/1133
- Instructor Supplied Information Last Updated:
- 1 November 2007
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