Dangerous Fun: Humor Power

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

Humor is human. It is art, creativity, resistance, resilience, and political commentary. It can tell us a lot about contexts, intentions, agency, power dynamics, marginalized communities, and social and cultural transformation. Humor is a distinctive human capacity, and despite being a human universal, has not figured prominently in anthropological literature. This course will begin with an overview of anthropological engagements with humor, with special attention to linguistic anthropologists’ works, before delving into the uses of humor in contemporary media and settings, such as memes, Tik Tok, YouTube, television shows, stand-up comedy acts, and everyday situations that spark laughter. The course will give special attention to “dark humor,” and the possible dangers of humor in social interaction. We will examine particular genres of American humor and their transformations over time: “ethnic” humor, feminist humor, political satire, and gendered portrayals of humor. Students will have a choice of doing a comedy skit, a stand-up performance, or producing a short comedic film or comic book that illuminates the social, cultural, and political dimensions of humor in their own lives.