Sophie Goalson

Reading Art is a seminar that orients students to college studies and emphasizes students' advancement of college-level critical reading and thinking skills. Students learn how to read and analyze artworks using the formal vocabulary of art and design, as well as how to read about art in art history textbooks, scholarly journals, and other sources. Students improve their ability to process, retain, and apply information by using active learning strategies and graphic organizers, including a schematic note-taking system. In addition to weekly readings and exercises, students complete an in-depth synthesis project on an artwork of their choosing. Regular museum visits complement class work.

This First Year Seminar course will explore humor writing as a serious artform, and will employ analysis strategies to get at the core of the question of what makes something funny. By the end of the semester, students will be able to write analytical essays that pick apart and organize ideas around both literature and humor, and will read and explore humorous writing throughout the English canon. The psychology of humor - exactly what it is that makes something funny - is complicated and requires careful mastery. This course will examine how writers and artists have historically used humor to reach audiences deeply, emotionally, and politically. Through works by Mark Twain, Dorothy Parker, Langston Hughes, Nora Ephron, Susan Orlean, Jack Handey, and Trevor Noah, we will get to the heart of what makes something funny, and how humor has changed over time. We will also look at the different formats of comedy, including satire, parody, film-writing, stand-up comedy, and more. Students should expect to write 15 to 20 pages of formal, revisable writing (4 short papers and one medium-length paper). In addition, they will do regular, rigorous in-class writing, and engage in weekly analytical conversation.

As an art form, humor is often considered menial and unrefined. In reality, the psychology of humor — exactly what it is that makes something funny — is complicated and requires careful mastery. This course will examine how writers and artists have historically used humor to reach audiences deeply, emotionally, and politically. Through works by Mark Twain, Franz Kafka, Calvin Trillin, Jade Chang, Percival Everett and others, we will get to the heart of what makes something funny, and how humor has changed over time. Students will build on foundational academics habits with weekly short writings. To complete the course, students must write 3 papers (one analytical, one argumentative, and one creative.