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Events Home > American Screen Comedy, Part Deux: Spoofs, Satires, Rom-Coms and Other Funny Stuff 

As we did last year, we’ll look at film comedy in its sociohistorical context to understand how it emerges from a specific time and space for specific audiences. No need to have completed Part I in order to join us for further serious discussion and debate—and, of course, belly laughs. 

In the process, we’ll:
- study the various genres and forms of film comedy from 1964 to the present;
- analyze the techniques, narratives and esthetics of screen humor;
- try to figure out what Hollywood comedy reveals about the culture that produced it; and
- pay homage to the comedy “auteurs” of the past 50 or so years.

We are likely to draw on writer-directors such as Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Wes Anderson and Ethan & Joel Coen, and we will no doubt feature great comic actors like Gene Wilder, Robin Williams, Steve Martin and other funny folk.   

This will be primarily a discussion class, but on occasion you will be asked to read pertinent short essays or reviews of the week’s film.

You can find all our films on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, YouTube, and lots of other streaming services, as well as on DVD from your local library. 

Course schedule:

- Jan. 20
- Jan. 27
- Feb. 3
- Feb. 10
- Feb. 17
- Feb. 24
- March 3
- March 10

All Zoom meetings will be at either 7:30 or 8 p.m. on Tuesdays.

$250 per person. Space is limited. Please register by Monday, Jan. 12.

Nancy Mellerski is one of the founders of the Dickinson film & media-studies program, and she has published books and articles on film, detective fiction and French fiction. While teaching at Dickinson she taught Introduction to Film Studies, Hollywood Renaissance, Hollywood on Hollywood and other courses in film for the college’s French, women’s studies and Middle East studies departments.