Understanding Comedy through College Comedies

Understanding Comedy through College Comedies explains the nature of comedy through the study of college comedy films, including classics (College, The Freshman); romantic/screwball comedies (Where the Boys Are, Ball of Fire, Sterile Cuckoo); famous comedian comedies (Horse Feathers, The Nutty Professor, The Klumps); intergenerational college comedies (That's My Boy, Back to School, Old School); social comedies (The Graduate, Breaking Away, Risky Business); political comedies (Getting Straight, Strawberry Statement, Last Supper); ethnic comedies (School Daze, Soul Man, How High); and college farces (Charlie's Aunt, Animal House, Revenge of the Nerds, Slackers). In this book, Norman Kagan explains comic terminology, concepts, and theories, including Freud's "e;displaced sexual content"e; in Decline of the American Empires, Langer's "e;vitalism"e; in Slacker, Bergson's "e;anesthesia of the heart"e; in The Squid and the Whale, and Frye's "e;reversal of literary modes"e; in Storytelling. The reader will discover the reasons why they are laughing, new reasons to laugh, and new films that will provide new sources of laughter.