Seminar (SEM)

• Topic: Im/Possible Futures?: Comedy after the End of Tragedy
• Above class meets with CULS-C 701

G579-¿Im/Possible Futures?: Comedy after the End of Tragedy¿ Tragedy has served as a model for the conditions of our societies. From Friedrich Nietzsche to Walter Benjamin, from Hans-Thies Lehmann to Terry Eagleton, scholars have reflected on the (in)ability of modern societies for tragic experience, often suggesting that we find ourselves in post-tragic times. Considering this supposed death of tragedy, Thies-Lehmann asserts: "the future of tragedy is comedy." Although the turn to the comic has been repeatedly heralded by scholars, the comic is still marginalized as a model for the self-understanding of the individual, society at large, and the planetary. This class will turn to the comedic mode and test it as a model for reflecting on the conditions of life in an age marked by climate catastrophe, late capitalism, struggling democracies, etc. Understanding comedy and tragedy not merely as genres, but as ways of living and being, we will work through theatrical, literary, and cinematic comic traditions of the 20th and 21st century (from Brecht to Beckett, from the avant-garde to Pasolini, from the circus to Spike Lee) and read them with, through, and against theories and philosophies of comedy (e.g. Hegel, Nietzsche, Freud, Benjamin, Agamben, Zupancic); always keeping historical traditions of comedy in mind (e.g. Ancient Greek comedy, commedia dell'arte). Although the class will introduce selected theories and materials, students are invited to bring their own materials and suggest texts that they would like to read through the suggested lens. This need not be limited to contemporary theatre, film and literature, but we can discuss a wide range of texts from different cultural contexts, historical moments, and different media and artforms.