02/01 WK 03 UT/ WK 02 NYU

"He who laughs cannot bite" - Norbert Elias.

IN CLASS

ANNOUNCE: NYU Students, can you post your blog URLs here too, so it's easier for me to distinguish who's NYU. Also, especially for students who have just joined the course: you can find all class presentations and class recordings here. Dr. Charlotte Kent will be visiting our class next week! See the talk description and read her bio here. LAST CHANCE TO SIGN UP FOR "LAUGH OUT LOUD" https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1y_adnlHyC2eDLk8NYTuMQtljX7YiJocDLNfEI85CzI4/edit?usp=sharing sponsored by WSPARK & DSLCOLLECTION ON SANSAR: ART EXHIBITIONS IN THE METAVERSE, opening April 9th. Prof Lanina and Prof Gannis are working with NYU Prof Snow Yunxue Fu on a Comedy Hour in the virtual (social VR) Washington Square Park. We will be including students, who are interested from this class, in the event (this means you need to have a moving image work or avatar performance ready to go one week BEFORE April 9th!).

READ ABOUT THE EVENT>> 😂 Laugh Out Loud

*This is an extra credit opportunity. If you would like to participate, sign up here BEFORE Feb 1. All students who sign up and make a work will receive extra credit, however Pro Snow Yunxue Fu will be the curator of the event, and will make final selections of works for inclusion. _____________________________________________________________________________________

PRESENTATIONS: Sarah Tahir

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UNPACKING COMEDIC LICENSE & CONTEXT, CULTURAL IDENTITIES, HISTORY, POLITICS: Yuliya Lanina, Presentation and Q & A

CLASS EXERCISE: "Cry Until you Laugh" This is an open work session. You will be addressing how comedians can incorporate personal adversity into their work.

• PART 1: “Support or challenge this claim: Comedians use their humor in order to deal with their own personal pain?” You'll have 10 minutes to write about this and then we will discuss together as a class.

• PART 2: Brainstorm a list of difficult or challenging situations that you have confronted in your lives (e.g., being cut from a sports team, failing a class in school, online harassment, the illness of a relative).

• PART 3: Now divide into groups of three or four, and each group will choose a scenarios from the class list out of which to develop a comedic sketch. This sketch can be produced as a comic strip, an animation, a performance, a video story, a written story or in some other form

• PART 4: Ask yourselves: What about this situation might be humorous from an outsider’s perspective? -What aspects of this scenario might be too uncomfortable to enact, for both the actors and the audience? -How can you realistically portray this event while at the same time revealing the inherent humor in it? -What surreal occurrences, exaggerated characters, or funny plot twists might be added to avoid dealing with the scenario in a way that will make the audience uncomfortable?

• PART 5: Be prepared to share your comedic sketch in class next week. If it is a time-based, the sketch should not exceed 5 minutes.

ASSIGNMENT 03

VRL (1) READ How comedy makes us better people https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160829-how-laughter-makes-us-better-people || In preparation for Charlotte Kent's visit next week:(2) VIEW https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksL_7WrhWOc and (3) READ "The Myth of Sisyphus" by Albert Camus http://dbanach.com/sisyphus.htm (4) WRITE & POST on your✍ Process Blogyour responses to the two VRL assigned. Do not write a summary. In other words, do not regurgitate what you absorbed. Discuss any epiphanies or insights that occurred while reading, what points of view you agreed with or that you didn't. (5) PREPARE your "Cry Until you Laugh" Comedic Sketches to be presented in class next week.