Comedy and Cruelty

Modernity is often conceived as tragedy—this course imagines otherwise. We will explore the usefulness of the comic frame in the wake of (economic, political, environmental) disaster through 20th-/21st century novels/films by Joseph Conrad, Frank Capra, Ralph Ellison, Samuel Selvon, Paul Beatty, Jordan Peele, Anna Burns, Bong Joon-Ho. This class investigates the possibility of joy in an age of disappointment. Enrollment limited to 17.