Miss Shuga Cain, a drag queen from New York City, performed a benefit show at MIT in 2016. Instructor Rosa Martínez organized that event and found inspiration in Miss Shuga Cain for this course, which examines the history of comedy and how jokes and laughter can teach us about our culture and ourselves. (Image courtesy of the instructor.)
Instructor(s)
Rosa Martínez
MIT Course Number
21L.021
As Taught In
Spring 2016
Level
Undergraduate
Course Description
Course Features
Course Description
This course is designed around analyzing what’s so funny and why is it that we laugh when we do. How is comedy characterized on the fictional page, the screen, and the stage? And what might the comic teach us about the self and culture(s), especially when we come to understand its patterns of transgression as confounding social norms through jokes and laughter? Tracking a history of comedy, beginning with the first Greek humorists, Aristophanes and Plautus, we will traverse genres, periods and cultures to reflect on various types of humor: satire, farce, slapstick, love, tragedy, parody, and screwball.
Other Versions
Other OCW Versions
OCW has published multiple versions of this subject. 