Mixed Emotions: Comedy and Melodrama in the Narratives of Western Modernity

(4 Credits)

What if the mask of comedy and tragedy was one, not two? In fact, it already is. Drama (particularly melodrama) and comedy have long co-existed within the plays, films, and television shows that have circulated since the 1700’s and the rise of mass literacy and media. In this class we will study the melodramatic and comic as modes whose pairing reflect alleged aspects of “modernity”: a necessary remix of traditional understandings of genre categories and an abiding preference for realism; the decline of common belief in the universal and metaphysical; the rise of the machine and nationhood; shifts in the political and personal negotiation of race, class, gender, and sexual identities; and philosophical arguments that emerged within and between the “Age of Enlightenment” and “Discovery of the Unconscious.” Our primary study materials will include American and European films, television shows, plays, and written fiction, but we will also consider stories from a variety of media as well as scholarly essays and histories. We will laugh and cry and think about why.