The poster’s background is a stock image of a wooden barstool on a dark stage with red velvet curtains, with white lettering for the title reading “Comedy and Gender in the U.S.: Counterpublics, World-Making, and the Politics of Pleasure'', and white lettering for the description that reads “Dr. David Sherman, Brandeis University, Ginger Lazarus, UMass Boston, Wednesday, 3:00-6:00PM, Fall 2021” with standard capitalization. In the lower right hand corner of the poster are the MIT logo with white and black letters, and the GCWS logo with white and purple lettering.
Wednesdays, 3:00-6:00PM
Fall 2021, Meets at MIT.
We are monitoring the status of each campus, and at this point, it is our understanding that courses will operate in-person again. If that changes, we will update our plans.
This course investigates comedy as a strategy for feminist and queer critique, counterpublic formation, and imaginative world-making. Our interdisciplinary approach to the cultural politics of laughter will address satire, carnival, the absurd, joke-telling rituals, the grotesque, farce, camp, the aesthetics of profanity, creative subversion, and transgressive play. Students will have opportunities to do academic and creative projects to engage these phenomena. Our guiding questions will include: how can we understand the tension between the ephemerality of laughter-pleasure and fixedness of gendered and racialized hierarchies? What do theories of comedy offer theories of subject formation, and vice-versa? How does reading laughter help us read mechanisms of oppression? How do controversies over offensive humor function, and what are their stakes? How does a focus on comedy and laughter sharpen concepts in public sphere theory? In what sense does comedy have the power to subvert white supremacist, patriarchal institutions? Primary context is the U.S., but students working in other regions and all disciplines are welcome.
Faculty
Ginger Lazarus is pictured in her faculty headshot looking straight at the camera with fair skin, blue eyes, and just below the ears length copper colored hair. She is wearing a purple blouse, with dangly silver earrings. She is smiling in front of a gray background.
Dr. David Sherman is pictured in his faculty headshot looking straight at the camera with shortly shaved brown hair and a brown and gray beard. He is smiling at the camera in a blue button down shirt in front of a blue background.
Ginger Lazarus is Senior Lecturer II in Theatre Arts at University of Massachusetts Boston. She is an award-winning playwright and the author of comedies Matter Familias and The Embryos. Her areas of research include military sexual assault, Russian artists under Stalin, and theater and social justice.
David Sherman is Associate Professor in English at Brandeis University. His research focuses on global moderism, public sphere theory, comedy, mortuary and commemorative practices, and literature in the criminal justice system. He is co-organizer of the Brandeis Justice Initiative, which expands educational opportunities for people impacted by the criminal justice system.