Laughter, Political Humor, and Social Control

Limited to graduate students. Investigation of power of political humor, one social practice that constructs discriminatory hierarchies in interpersonal settings and mass media. With goal of developing set of principled methods to investigate its manifestations, reading of outstanding humanistic contributions across history of its social function and power, development of classification of types and settings of political humor, and critical evaluation of recent social scientific models of its nature.

S/U or letter grading.