Laughing Matters: Humor that Hits Home

(EGL 264)

Anyone who has ever reluctantly uttered the phrase “We’ll look back on this and laugh,” knows the unique relationship between humor and misery. In this course, we will study that relationship in fiction and memoir. Through the reading of stories, essays, and novel excerpts from a wide array of gifted and funny writers, including George Saunders, Donald Barthelme, David Foster Wallace, and Lorrie Moore, we will discuss tone, timing, and incongruity, as well as the rewards of mining the writer’s own life for material. Writing exercises will be geared toward helping students find the balance between the sharply comic and the emotionally resonant. Each student will submit one longer piece, which will be critiqued in a supportive environment. “Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog,” E.B. White famously said. “Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.” We will challenge White’s assertion in this course, aiming for a roomful of madly hopping frogs.

Jeff O'Keefe, William M. Chace Lecturer; Former Stegner Fellow and Jones Lecturer

Jeff O’Keefe received an MFA in fiction from the University of Arizona. His stories have appeared in Epoch, The Greensboro Review, Swink, Fourteen Hills, and on KQED’s The Writer’s Block.