COURSE DESCRIPTION

    Studying laughter is not a laughing matter. Humor is a serious issue. However, neither laughing nor humor have received a proper attention from the scientific world until recently. This course is designed to introduce students to anthropology of laughter and humor, and then to demonstrate their importance in examining stereotypes, the formation of groups, and the societal structures that facilitate them. Consequently, the first part of the course (four meetings) focuses on theoretical and methodological issues involved in the anthropological study of humor and laughter, including very recent research on both as based on biological, genetic, and neurological data. When it becomes clear (through the use of specific examples) that different forms of humor not only reflect socio-political values, dynamics, conflicts, and challenges experienced in the multiethnic, multicultural, and multilingual complexity of the American “Melting Pot” but also perpetuate the existing stereotypes, inequalities, and perceptions, the rest of the semester will focus on analyzing how certain groups come to be defined as outsiders who are supposedly fair game for racist, sexist, or other forms of derogatory humor, as well as the societal structures that make this possible. In other words, the theoretical and methodological tools will be applied to what students are already familiar with and intuitively comprehend, i.e., the use and abuse of humor in the U.S.