21L.021 | Spring 2016 | Undergraduate

Comedy

Calendar

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

Course Info

Instructor
Departments
As Taught In
Spring 2016
Learning Resource Types
Written Assignments