Teaching Portfolio

COLT 204 – World of Fiction

Clowns and Tricksters

Winter 2005

This course will survey the histories and functions of various trickster and clown figures in mythology, folktales, literature, and popular culture. Beginning with tricksters in Native American, African, and Greek mythology and moving through the Medieval European clowns of both the court and the countryside, this course will examine the roles of tricksters and clowns as characters that challenge reason, invoke chaos, and mark and transgress social conventions. Figures of tricksters and clowns remain important in many contemporary writings, oftentimes appearing as marginalized characters standing outside the mainstream, criticizing the status quo, hastening social transformation, and turning the world upside down.

Required Course Materials

Edward Abbey. The Monkey Wrench Gang

Dario Fo. The Accidental Death of an Anarchist

Course packet

Recommended

William Bright. A Coyote Reader

William Shakespeare. King Lear

William Shakespeare. A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Course Schedule

Week 1

Introductions

TRICKSTERS IN MYTHOLOGY

Reading: Aristotle, Homer

Week 2

Reading: Bright

(Recommended: Toelken)

Reading: Pelton, Owomoyela, Harris

Week 3

Exam 1

MEDIEVAL LAUGHTER

Reading: Rabelais

Week 4

COMEDY & THE GROTESQUE – THE CARNIVALESQUE

Reading: Bakhtin

Week 5

SHAKESPEARE’S FOOLS

Reading/Presentation: Shakespeare

COMMEDIA DELL’ARTE

Week 6

THE CIRCUS

Film: TBA

(Recommended Film: P.T. Barnum: America’s Greatest Showman)

Exam 2

FROM STAGE TO SCREEN: SLAPSTICK, VAUDEVILLE, & “CLASSIC” FILM COMEDY

Films: “The Rink,” “Cops”

Week 7

Duck Soup

A PSYCHOANALYTIC APPROACH TO JOKES

Reading: Freud

Week 8

TRICKSTERS AND CLOWNS – UPDATED

Reading: Fo

Reading: Rubin

Film: The Pie’s the Limit

Week 9

Reading: Abbey

Week 10

Reading: Phelan

Conclusions