The Subversive Art of Comedy: From Commedia dell'Arte to Stand-up

Catalog description

Why do we laugh? And why has comedy so often unsettled the powerful? This course begins with an exhilarating exploration of Commedia dell'Arte - the anarchic, mask-driven improvisational theater that exploded onto Renaissance Italy's streets and left its trace across the world. From Shakespeare's jesters to Molière's farces, from Bakhtin's carnivalesque to contemporary stand-up, we trace how stock characters, masks, grotesque physicality, and satire continue to challenge authority, expose hypocrisy, and provoke laughter. We'll investigate how Commedia traveled across borders and centuries, inspiring Italian opera buffa, Cuban teatro bufo, South Asian Bhand Pather, and legendary playwrights such as Dario Fo, Tekle Hawariat Tekle Mariyam, and Betsuyaku Minoru. Alongside historical study, we'll analyze iconic performers like Charlie Chaplin, Lucille Ball, Richard Pryor, and Roberto Benigni, asking how they channel the timeless energy of Commedia to create radical, subversive humor. We will study not only the subjects and objects of humor, but also its materiality, its rhythms, and its unruly passions. We will read critical theorists of humor including Mikhail Bakhtin, Henri Bergson, Sigmund Freud, Rene Girard, Michael Jeffries, Alenka Zupancic, Sianne Ngai, among others. Throughout, we'll grapple with questions: Can comedy unsettle political authority? How do stock characters both reinforce and satirize cultural stereotypes? Why does comedy thrive on vulgarity, sexuality, and excess? Can laughter become a form of resistance? Drawing on theatre, philosophy, performance studies, and cultural history, this course invites you to think deeply - and laugh hard - about one of humanity's oldest, most dangerous arts.