Topics in Literature and Society: Politics and Literature: Topics in Literature and Society: Politics and Literature: Comedy in Civic Discourse

From Aristophanes' "Wasps" to Shakespeare's jesters, from Boccaccio's bawdy "Decameron" to Stephen Colbert's "I Am America (and so can you!)", comedy and satire have helped us organize how we think about that great socio-political animal, homo sapiens. In addition to the aforementioned authors, we'll also read works by Geoffrey Chaucer, Niccolò Machiavelli, Jonathan Swift, Jane Austen, Mark Twain, Joseph Heller, Hunter S. Thompson, and others.