ENG 288 section 02
Professor Robert Barsky
“Questioning Academic Life: Laughter and Responsibility in Fictional and Real Worlds”
Wednesdays 3:10-6:00 pm , FM 209
Office hours: Wednesdays 1-3; Thursdays 1-2 or by appointment, FM227
Website: www.vanderbilt.edu/french_ital/barsky/eng288
This course will focus on LAUGHTER, laughing, humor, the belly-bouncing reaction we have to what is funny or odd or unnerving. The literary example we'll be using for our discussion comes from fictional representations of life in the Academy, as portrayed in 20th Century British and American novels, and upon questions concerning the role of the intellectual in contemporary society. On the literary side, students will be treated to the foibles and conquests of professors in literature departments as represented in novels by authors associated with a range of movements, including contemporary feminism, the Angries, the Beat Generation, and the postmodern period, while on the theory end there will be discussions of laughter, politics and literary theory appropriate to the matters raised in the novels.
Novels:
Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim, Penguin.
Jane Smiley, Moo, Ivy Books.
David Lodge, Small World, Penguin.
Richard Russo, Straight Man, Random House.
Approaches:
Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, U of Texas Press.
Robert Barsky, The Chomsky Effect, MIT Press.
Camille Paglia, Sex, Art and American Culture, Vintage Books.
Francois Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel (excerpts)
Beat Generation and Angry Young Men (handouts and excerpts)
Assignments:
Participation (attendance is mandatory) 30%
First paper 30%, due March 12th in class. Please make an appointment to see me about topics and approaches before you begin!
Second paper 40%, due the last day of class, and, once again, please discuss the topic and approach with me beforehand!
Week-by-week
Part 1: The history of battles lost and won
1. January 9th. Introduction: what is laughter? What is the ivory tower? Why are ivory towers so funny?
2. January 16th. Bakhtin’s laughing matter (Readings: “Rabelais and the History of Laughter” in Rabelais and His World 59-144; “Literature, Humor and the Effects of Creative Discourse” in The Chomsky Effect; video: “Bottom”).
3. January 23rd. Laughter and the Angries (Readings: Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim; handout on The Angry Young Men)
Plot summary: The irreverent Jim Dixon arrives for work at a small, provincial college in a state of confusion. A newly hired junior lecturer in Medieval History, he needs to locate his new boss, Neddy Welch, head of the department, acquaint himself with his co-workers, and settle in to his new living quarters, a rooming house with its own group of eccentrics. Navigating through this assortment of annoying coworkers and off-center neighbors, he encounters the aggressive Margaret Peel, who targets Jim for love. Between amorous interludes, Margaret reminds Jim that he needs to impress Neddy to save his job, which is in constant danger. Since Jim is both unpublished and untenured, she suggests that Jim warm to Neddy's adoration of "madrigals." It isn't long before Jim finds himself in the midst of a weekend excursion at the Welches' -- full of singing and dramatic readings -- when all he wants to do is head off to the local pub for a pint or two. For enduring the weekend's numerous frustrations, Jim is rewarded with meeting the beautiful Christine Callahan, bookseller girlfriend of Neddy's pompous painter son, Bertrand. Acerbic but endearing, Jim bumbles his way through his professional and personal life, pursuing stature and romance. He fends off Margaret's overtures, surreptitiously seeks out Christine, and, in the end, aims for a life lived honestly. The ultimate test is the success of his lecture on "Merrie England," anticipated with dread, to be delivered to his assembled academic colleagues and friends.
4. January 30th. Laughter and Subversion (Readings: Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim; Mikhail Bakhtin, “Images of the Material Bodily Lower Stratum” in Rabelais and His World 368-436).
5. February 6th. Being Beat and Funny, laughter and the Beat Generation on US campuses. (Readings: Allen Ginsberg at http://www.allenginsberg.org/library.php?catalogue=Video, Gregory Corso; Video excerpts in class: “Fried Shoes and Cooked Diamonds”).
6. February 13th. Institutional laughter (Readings: David Lodge, Small World; spoof of MLA at http://www.mlade.org).
Synopsis of Small World: David Lodge's book is a hilarious and entertaining romp through the world of academia. Professors around the globe attend conferences in order to read papers, build their reputations and enter into love affairs. Pearse McGarrigle finds himself swept up in the world of conferencing, although his interest is not really in the papers presented. Pearse travels around the globe trying to locate the mysterious Al Pabst, the beautiful woman he met at a conference in England. As he travels, he must cope with his sexual desire and his religious ideals as well as with the disturbing information he uncovers about his love. Pabst seems to always be at the next conference, so that as Pearse drains his money trying to fly to Hawaii, Japan, America, and various parts of Europe, he seems to always have just missed the beuatiful woman he wants to marry. During his adventures, Pearse learns a great deal about himself. The professors and academics around Pearse seem to have fewer epiphanies, but they entertain the reader with their professional jealousies, their affairs and their often dishonest behavior.
7. February 20th. Contemporary Angry Laughter (Readings: David Lodge, Small World; “The Chomsky Effect Within and Beyond the Ivory Tower” in The Chomsky Effect)
8. February 27th. Laughter Against the Status Quo: Hippies, Yippies and Growing Up (Readings: videos of Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin; Video: “Growing Up in America”, David Lodge, Small World).
9. March 5th. SPRING BREAK!
10. March 12th. Mooing at the Ruins (Readings: Jane Smiley, Moo; Camille Paglia, “Sexual Personae” in Sex, Art and American Culture). First paper due in class.
Synopsis of Moo: Effortlessly switching gears after the Pulitzer Prize-winning A Thousand Acres, Smiley delivers a surprising tour de force, a satire of university life that leaves no aspect of contemporary academia unscathed. The setting is a large midwestern agricultural college known as Moo U., whose faculty and students Smiley depicts with sophisticated humor, turning a gimlet eye on the hypocrisy, egomania, prejudice and self-delusion that flourish on campus-and also reflect society at large. Everybody at Moo U. has an agenda: academic, sexual, social, economic, political and philosophical. Among the more egregious types that Smiley portrays are Dr. Lionel Gift, an intellectual whore who calls students "customers" and is willing to skew research to further his name and line his pocketbook; Dr. Bo Jones, who is conducting a secret experiment on an appealing boar named Earl Butz (Earl and the horses on campus are nicer than the humans by a mile); and a superlatively bossy secretary who is a lot smarter than the Ph.Ds she serves. A chapter titled "Who's in Bed With Whom" clears things up in that department-but only temporarily, since musical beds is a continuous game. A quartet of women roommates who all hide secrets from each other, an unscrupulous "little Texan with jug ears" who wants to give the college tainted money, and a stuffy dean who thinks that anything he desires is God's will are some of the large cast of characters that Smiley manipulates with remarkable ease-and though some portrayals verge on caricature, she never goes over the line. Details of midwest topography, weather and culture are rendered with unerring authenticity. The narrative sails along with unflagging vigor and cleverness, and even the ironic denouement has an inevitability that Smiley orchestrates with hilarious wit.
11. March 19th. Moo (Readings: Jane Smiley, Moo)
12 March 26th. Questions of Sex (Readings: Richard Russo, The Straight Man, Camille Paglia, “The MIT Lecture,” in Sex, Art and American Culture)
Synopsis of Straight Man: Hank Devereaux Jr. is the kind of guy who turns anything serious into a joke. Pushing 50, he's the interim chair of a squabbling English department at a small rural college. Big budget cuts are rumored. Each department chair has been told to provide a list of those who will lose their jobs. His department believes that Hank has prepared such a list, but he hasn't and won't. Instead, he goes on television and spontaneously jokes that he will kill the campus geese until the administration gives him his budget. When a goose really is killed, Hank becomes the prime suspect. In his earlier novels (e.g., Nobody's Fool, LJ 4/15/93), Russo captured with compassion and humor the lives of the people in small backwater towns; now he does the same for those who inhabit the groves of academe. This novel is filled with laughter but also much seriousness. Give it a straight A.
13. April 2nd. Teaching Laughter and Creativity (Readings: Richard Russo, The Straight Man; “Effective Teaching” in The Chomsky Effect; “Junk Bonds and Corporate Raiders” in Sex, Art and American Culture).
14. April 9th. Contemporary Academic Scandals in a “postmodern” era: The Sokal Hoax. (Readings: http://physics.nyu.edu/~as2; “Obfuscating the Chomsky Effect” in The Chomsky Effect)
15. April 16th. Conclusions. Final paper due in class.
Secondary Materials
There is a secondary reading list comprised of photocopied texts and secondary readings, all of which are on reserve in the library. They fall under a range of categories deemed central to the course, and are available for consultation for those interested in broadening their knowledge of particular issues:
Laughter:
Breaking up (at) totality : a rhetoric of laughter, by Diane Davis
The senses of humor : self and laughter in modern America, by Daniel Wickberg
Subversive laughter : the liberating power of comedy, by Ron Jenkins
Politics and the University:
The Political Responsibility of the Intellectual, by Jim Merod
Uncritical Theory, by Christopher Norris
Universities in the Business of Repression, by Jonathan Feldman
Academic Capitalism, by Slaughter and Leslie.
Literary texts:
Other novels about the academy by
John Wain
David Lodge
Mary McCarthy
John L’heureux
Academic Issues:
A range of photocopies articles from:
NYRB
LTHES
Telos
LRB
Lingua Franca
