Warning: Do NOT take this
course
Here are 3, no 10, no 21
good reasons not to take this course.
- Pedantic academic
study ruins even the most interesting topics, including humor.
2. Humor scholars, though very sure of themselves,
do not agree on the nature of humor.
3. Humor is related to laughter but not necessarily so.
4. There are many bad jokes that do not work.
5. What is funny to some may not be funny to all.
6. Most humor presumes at least shared
language competencies.
7. Much humor presumes substantial background knowledge,
assumptions and expectations.
8. Humor is often highly historically contextualized.
9. Humor has a long and varied history.
10. Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog
(E.B. White).
11. Humor is levity and trivial as such.
12. Humor is often nonsense, and vulgar nonsense at that.
13. Political humor concerns power and justice,
grave subjects which tend to involve frustration, anguish, and pain.
14. Political humor either has specific sorts
of targets,
in which case …
15. It may
involve morally bad humor that mocks, offends, or humiliates,
or at least passes judgment.
16. It may be devilish, irreligious, or at
least involve devil’s advocacy
17. It may be traitorous to the polity.
18. When political humor does not have specific targets
it consists in a generalized misanthropy.
19. Regardless, listening to lectures on humor is about
as much fun
as paying a parking ticket.
20. Studying humor puts you at a greatly increased risk
of losing your own sense of humor
and
21. Writing humor is hard.