Monday, April 28, 2014

Laughing Matters

I feel that I have learned a great deal in this course.  It opened my eyes to all the different kinds of comedies that existed and still exist, most of which I didn’t even know existed, like Carnivalesque laughter and New Comedy.  It helped me realize certain tropes in comedies (such as the green world) that I was previously unaware of and some of the reasons as to why we laugh and even how it ties in to our own biology and instincts.  Thanks to this, I believe my skills in critical thinking, analysis and interpretation of literature have improved greatly. 

As an engineering major, I have learned to think in new ways, to think about the literature I read and to realize the depth which the classic novels I have shunned for most of my life really reach.  I feel that I better understand the choice of comedies, and while they seemed boring or lethargic at first, I now realize how engaging they really were and that I only disliked them due to my own misunderstanding. 

In the end I grew quite fond of this class.  Not only was it a break from the endless control systems, chemical process and plant layouts I had to learn to read and speak about, but it was also a way to explore the creative depths of my mind I had so long neglected to nourish.  It felt good to read comedies that I had never heard of, and to finally enjoy a classic piece of literature. 


A nice touch in this class was the study of The Big Lebowski.  It was a good demonstration of how the concepts we learned in class could very easily be applied to the real world and to modern comedy, not only old.  Now every time I go to watch a comedy, I feel that my brain has been primed to automatically detect the presence of topics that we have talked about.  

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