CAT 124/125 DIVINE COMEDY A Practicum, Writing Workshop & Critical Analysis in Modern American Stand-up Comedy Also known as: Dirty Words, Pig Newtons & More Monkeys For Me SPRING QUARTER 2016 Daphne Taylor-Garcia, PhD in Ethnic Studies [email protected] Kiik Araki-Kawaguchi, MFA in Writing [email protected] This will not be a course on how to be funny. It will also not be a fanboy class on Louis CK and Dave Chappelle. This will also not be a course on the work of Medieval Italian poet Dante Alighieri. I just needed to borrow and profane the name of his epic poem “The Divine Comedy” for the selfish reason of creating a catchy course title. I just want to be upfront about this now so none of you get mean or grumpy halfway through the quarter. That being said, I expect we will all do a lot of laughing. One of my last teaching evaluations said, “If nothing else, we really laughed at him a lot. Especially his haircut.” We will definitely watch or listen to work by Margaret Cho, Wanda Sykes, Patrice O’Neal, Roseanne Barr, George Carlin, George Lopez, Aziz Ansari, Chelsea Peretti, Sarah Silverman, Gabriel Iglesias, Louis CK and Dave Chappelle (with a critical lens). And Dante Alighieri will still have nothing to do with this class. He’s dead. Still here? Ok cool . This course will combine the concerns of the 124 Practicum (experiential and community-based learning) with the concerns of a CAT 125 course (public rhetoric, practical communication/writing, professional development, social media). You will write, research for, analyze, workshop and perform stand-up comedy material. Let me repeat that last part. You will perform stand-up comedy material weekly. You do not have to be able to get laughs or be comfortable on stage in order to get an A. You do have to be brave, respectful and a hard worker. You will not only be asked to critique our class texts, but also conceive and develop your stand-up material AS A FORM OF social/cultural/media critique. I should elaborate on this point. When I said earlier this class is not all about becoming funny, I wasn’t joking. If all you care about is getting big-belly laughs and don’t mind 2 doing it at the expense of another person’s race, gender, sexuality, disability, class, culture, etc. – then you shouldn’t take this class. This course will be much more interested in forging a productive dialogue between the speaker and the issues of race, gender and sexuality. Your writing and performance will be subject to a variety of constraints (for ex. No derogatory slurs that demean another person based on their color, nation, culture etc.) We’re not asking you to hold all your punches. We are going to ask you to take a lot of risks. We are going to discuss these risks. And we want to defend your right to take them. At the same time we should always be considering this problem, this contradiction of comedy. The comedy we’re going to be confronting (and producing) hinges on a contradiction between the offensive and the critical. The central contradiction of standup comedy – of anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-colonial comedy – is that racism, sexism, colonialism, homophobia are ugly phenomena and pressing concerns. At the same time, there is an internal ridiculousness of these phenomena that make us laugh. The confrontation of tragedy can provoke laughter. So can the demystification of incredibly dark desires. You are going to continually ask yourself questions like these: How can you be funny and critical about racism without advertising racism? How can you be funny about violence without undermining the consequence of violence? The concerns of the best stand-up comedians will also be our concerns – racism, sexism, violence, colonialism, homophobia, class disparity, disability, and more. But don’t feel you already have to be a scholar of these subjects to take this course. It is more important that you keep and open mind and be ready to struggle. We will also be concerned with the ethics of contemporary stand-up comedy (for ex. gender inequality for professional comedians). This is something of a class creating comedy that is taking comedy as its subject. You will also develop written analyses that chart your thinking/progress and place your projects within a critical framework. You will participate in studio critiques, lab/workshop hours, engage with films, texts and critical theory. In general you will perform weekly at a “comedy in progress” night and engage with the on-campus UCSD undergraduate and graduate student communities. On the occasions you don’t perform at a scheduled event, you will instead publicize for and perform at other public events. For example you will have a midterm performance at an open-mic night that you will research and visit within your “comedy families.” The final comedy showcase will take place at a UCSD venue (likely the Cross Cultural Center). For your FINAL performance, you will draw upon your previous projects, and select your strongest 2-4 minutes of work to perform. You will also design a calling card schwag 3 ornament to give out at the festival that will advertise/brand your creative work/vision. This performance will take place at a public, on-campus location. At some point in the quarter, your “comedy family” is required to make a visit to a comedy club and write a collective reflection/critique of the performance. You don’t need to break the bank on this. I suggest you all put yourselves on the email list at The Madhouse Comedy Club. Madhouse frequently offers free tickets for their shows and features a fairly eclectic group of performers. Lestat’s Coffeehouse on Adams also does a free comedy show on Tuesday evenings. Every student will develop an online portfolio throughout the quarter. As a finishing touch you will re-purpose your artist memos (another name for these might be process statements) into an “About” section on your website that will discuss your body of work from a curatorial point-of-view. You will do this with attention to the research, texts, discussions, critical practices and cultural references that influenced you throughout the quarter. MEETING TIMES: All meeting times take place on . SECTIONS ...................................................................tba LECTURE .....................................................................tba SEMINAR ....................................................................tba OFFICE HOURS ………………………………………………………..tba COURSE TEXTS You are not required to BUY any texts for this course. We are trying to keep things as cheap as possible. Your readings will be available online, on TED or as handouts. BUT – You are required to print out reading materials when they are scanned/uploaded to TED and you are required to have these materials on hand during class. When families are being workshopped, you are required to print out their work (usually joke scripts), make marginalia, and come prepared to talk about their pieces. You are required to print out the 2 critiques you write up for Monday afternoons. Buy your own stapler. Be prepared to spend about $5 on a stapler and $25 on copies this quarter. AND – You are required to have access to a Netflix account for the quarter. This is because several of your required texts are standup comedy specials and will be available streaming through this service. This may cost you somewhere between $16-$24 4 SOCIAL MEDIA You are required to maintain your presence on TED this quarter through blogs/discussion boards. A lot of communication (updates, clarifications, changes to syllabus) will take place at the beginnings of discussion and in email form. So make sure to be at discussion sections on time, and make sure to check your email regularly. You are also required to create and maintain the following forms of social media for this course: Twitter Your Twitter will fill at least two roles during the quarter. First it will be an archive of the quotes, passing ideas, confrontations, dialogues, etc. that will document your critical thinking and process during the quarter. It will also help publicize and document your performances and the performances of your comedy family members. I have built my own Twitter to document this class along the way - https://twitter.com/DBCShiaLabeouf (https://twitter.com/signup) WordPress Your WordPress will help represent you as an artist, performer, writer, etc. Take a look at this page for ideas - http://www.miciamosely.com/comedy/ I have also built my own WordPress to illustrate some of the concepts we’ll be discussing AND to document this class along the way - http://divinecomedyalityness.wordpress.com/ (http://wordpress.com/website/?source=google&campaign=hsb&utm_content=DisURL Website&utm_campaign=ExactWordPress&gclid=CKuppvGZsr0CFVKIfgodWJoAVA) Vimeo OR YouTube You will have to post video of your performances on your WordPress site and may need a YouTube or Vimeo account to handle easy uploads. You may have to create a YouTube account in order to view some of the materials we want to discuss this quarter. (https://vimeo.com/join?gclid=CPWDz8qdsr0CFY6RfgodTEAAZg&dclid=CO_agcydsr0CFQ uhhQodg3AAvw 5 COMIC FAMILY At the beginning of the quarter, you will all take part in choosing your “comic family.” Your comic family are the people who support you while working on new material. They will help document your work while you are on stage. You will collaborate with them, workshop with them, meet with them outside of class to view/listen to comedy specials, etc. In class we will frequently break into “families” in order to pitch/perform/critique/develop our class projects. You have an obligation to be honest and supportive to the members of your family.