SES #
TOPICS
KEY DATES
Week 1: Introduction - What’s So Funny?
1-2
General introduction; basic vocabulary; course structure
Close Reading 1 due two days after Session 2
Week 2: Old Comedy
3-4
Aristophanes, Lysistrata; Spike Lee, Chi-Raq
Close Reading 2 due Session 4
Week 3: Plautus & Shakespeare
5-6
Plautus, Menaechmi; Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors
Draft of Essay 1 due Session 6
Week 4: Shakespeare cont.
7-8
The Comedy of Errors and Twelfth Night
Close Reading 3 & Revision of first paragraph in draft of Essay 1 both due Session 8
Week 5: Spanish Classics
9-10
Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote of La Mancha
Final version of Essay 1 due Session 10
Week 6: Spanish Classics cont.
11-12
Don Quixote of La Mancha
Close Reading 4 due Session 12
Week 7: Early Women Humor
13-14
Charlotte Lennox, The Female Quixote
Close Reading 5 due Session 13
Draft of Essay 2 due Session 14
Week 8: American Humor
15-16
Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Close Reading 6 due Session 15
Week 9: American Humor cont.
17-18
James McBride, The Good Lord Bird
Final version of Essay 2 due Session 18
Week 10: Women & Comedy
19-20
Tina Fey
Close Reading 7 due Session 19
Week 11: Comic Memoir
21
Tina Fey & David Sedaris
Close Reading 8 due Session 21
Week 12: Graphic Novels
22-23
John Leguizamo, Ghetto Klown
Draft of Essay 3 due Session 22
Week 13: Gendering the Joke
24-25
Watch: To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar; Alison Bechdel, Fun Home
Close Reading 9 due Session 24
Week 14: She’s the Man
26-27
Event: “She’s the Man: A Drag Queen Performance” by Miss Shuga Cain. Funded by MIT’s De Florez Fund for Humor.
Close Reading 10 due Session 26
Final version of Essay 3 due the day after Session 27
