Curious about what the nine fellows at the Oklahoma Center for the Humanities are doing in the spring research seminar? Here’s a look at our syllabus that includes detailed study of topics like satire, nonsense, pain, internet trolls, and vaudeville. The seminar is closed to the public, but in the coming weeks we’ll feature blog and Facebook posts about our work.
Seminar Schedule
Week 1 (8/26)
What’s Funny?
Read: Simon Critchley, On Humor
Watch: Chaplin, Modern Times (1936)
Week 2 (9/2)
Humor, Comedy, Zaniness, and Laughter
Read: Sianne Ngai, “The Zany Science,” from Our Aesthetic Categories
Watch: I Love Lucy (“The Marriage License,” “The Ballet,” “Lucy Does a TV Commercial” )
Week 3 (9/9)
Nonsense
Read: Selections from Edward Lear’s Complete Verse and Other Nonsense, ed. Vivien Noakes (Penguin)
Read: Susan Stewart’s Nonsense: Aspects of Intertextuality in Folklore and Literature
Read: Jean-Jacques LeCercle, The Philosophy of Nonsense.
Week 4 (9/16)
Satire and Sex
View: Marcantonio Raimondi after Giulio Romano, I Modi [The Positions], originally engraved c. 1524.
View: Monogrammist CLF after Francesco Salviati, The Triumph of the Phallus, original design from the 16th century.
View: Giacomo Franco, Da questa sorte sono i buon salami [This is the good kind of salami], 1580-90.
View: Philippe Thomassin, after Giovanni Giacomo de’ Rossi, O Zanolina mia, è meglio la fava che il fiore [Oh Zanolina my beautiful girl, the bean is better than the flower], c. 1595
View: Plate with a Woman and a Basket of Phallic Fruits, first quarter of the 16th century Francesco Urbini (attributed to), Phallic-head plate, 1536
Read: Paul Barolsky, “Mannerist Bizzarrie” in Infinite Jest: Wit and Humor in Italian Renaissance Art, pp. 101-138.
Read: Catalog entries on I Modi from Art and Love in Renaissance Italy, ed. Andrea Bayer. Cat. num.: 99, 100
Read: Selections from Pietro Aretino’s Sonnetti lussorosi
Read: Sara Matthews-Grieco “Satyrs and sausages: erotic strategies and the print market in Cinquecento Italy” in Erotic Cultures of Renaissance Italy, pp. 19-60.
Read: Catalog entries on lascivious prints and ceramics from Art and Love in Renaissance Italy, ed. Andrea Bayer. Cat. num.: 102, 106, 109, 110, 111
Week 5 (9/23)
Satire and Enlightenment
Read: Introduction to Satire by Leonard Feinberg, pp. 3-19
Read: A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift (1729)
Read: The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope (1714)
Week 6 (9/30)
Satire: Why Don’t They Get It?
Read: Selections from Nieman Reports 58.4
Background: Gulliver’s Travels
Week 7 (10/7)
Mistrusting Humor
Read: Postman, from Amusing Ourselves to Death
Read: Gans, from Popular Culture and High Culture
Read: Arendt, “Society and Culture”
Watch: Sturgis, Sullivan’s Travels (1941)
Week 8 (10/14)
Special Event
Attend: Literary Death Match
Week 9 (10/21)
Humor and the Everyday
Read: Detweiler, Eric. ““I Was Just Doing A Little Joke There”: Irony And The Paradoxes Of The Sitcom In The Office.” Journal Of Popular Culture 45.4 (2012): 727-748.
Watch: The Office (U.S.), Episode 1.1 “Pilot”
Watch: Parks and Recreation, Episode 1.1 “Pilot”
Watch: Last Week Tonight With John Oliver: Net Neutrality https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpbOEoRrHyU
Week 10 (10/28)
Humor and Digital Life
Read: Whitney Phillips, from This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things
Special Guest: Whitney Phillips
Week 11 (11/4)
Vaudeville
View: Vaudeville
View: Nicholas Brothers, Stormy Weather (YouTube)
View: Tommy Tiernan (TBD)
Read: Writing for Vaudeville (excerpts)
Week 12 (11/11)
Humor and Pain
Watch: Seinfeld, “The Yada Yada”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mV7m6IIN_tI
Watch: Bill Irwin, “The Clown Bagatelles”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94r249gfA90
Read: CJS Hayward, “Humor Delivers Pain” https://cjshayward.com/pain/
Read: Trevor Griffiths, The Comedians
Week 13 (11/18)
Humor and Mental Illness
Read: Gelkopf, M. 2011. The use of humor in serious mental illness: a review. Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Vol 2011, pp. 1-8.
Read: Kuiper, N. 2012. Humor and Resiliency: Towards a Process Model of Coping and Growth. Europe’s Journal of Psychology. Vol. 8(3), pp. 475-491.
Read: Corrigan, P., et al. 2014. Does Humor Influence the Stigma of Mental Illnesses? Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease. Vol. 202(5), pp. 397-401.