OSHER 696 - Reading and Writing Comic Fiction

Why don't funny stories always translate to the page? Conversely, what is funny on the page? In this class, we will draw on theories of humor, rules of comedy, and the Wilder hypothesis to analyze classic examples of tragicomic fiction (Lolita, Catch-22, Lake Wobegon, etc.) to decide how they work. We will generate scenarios and comic fiction from numerous in-class and out-of-class exercises and critique our work.