What we learned teaching HON 394:

Humor across the Disciplines

By Alleen and Don Nilsen

Emeritus College

Arizona State University1

Teaching HON 394: “Humor across the Disciplines”

In the Fall Semester of 2012, one year after we had retired from 38 years of teaching at Arizona State University.

Don had been a Professor of Linguistics, and Alleen had been the Chair of English Education.

We had the good fortune to be the first recipients of an Arizona State University’s Barrett Honors College fellowship, co-sponsored by the ASU Emeritus College.

As part of the fellowship, we taught a one-semester class for three upper-division credit hours to 21 students.

They were mostly juniors and seniors, ten males and eleven females, with a wide variety of majors.

Our official course title was “Humor across the Disciplines.

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We started with history and theories about humor scholarship, and then went on to show how humor plays a part in such academic areas as:

Anthropology Art Business Creative Writing

Gerontology Music Philosophy Politics Psychology

We also discussed Cultural Studies (including issues relating to gender and ethnicity)

Health Care (both Physical and Emotional)

Linguistics (including language changes brought about by the digital age and worldwide communication

Literature (including characterization, the naming of people, places, and things, and the use of parody, sarcasm, satire, and irony)

The Performing Arts (including comic films, drama, sit-coms, stand-up comedians and late night television),

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Learning from the HON 394 Students

While these were the subjects we brought to class, the students came with such a different array of subjects, techniques, and attitudes that in our minds we thought of the class as “Laughing across the Generations.”

And then, because every student arrived in class carrying some piece of digital equipment—a smart phone, a tablet, or a laptop computer—which they frequently referred to, we thought maybe the class should have been called “Humor in a Digital Age.”

We were lucky to be teaching the course at the same time as the Presidential election, because the various campaigns provided us with plenty of real-life evidence regarding the role of humor in public life

However some jokes and cartoons were considered humorous to some of the students but were interpreted as hate speech by others.

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Phase Two of HON 394 ENG 394

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Meet some of our students:

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They wanted education to be fun

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Student memes made us see medicine differently

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Even calories were viewed differently

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History took on a different perspective

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Our students had a more playful view of linguistics

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…and punctuation became more fun

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They taught us the difference between writers and readers

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They taught us about Twilight, about Trekkies, and about Nerdfighters

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They also taught us many psychological conceptslike anger and contentment

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Curiosity and Desire

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Fear and Sadness

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Love and Narcisism

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Surprise

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They also taught us about point of view

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Our students also taught us an important rhetorical concept

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Our students also taught some important sociological concepts

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They also taught us about LOL Cats and about Computers

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Our class taught us about photo bombing:

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Sloth & Cat Tail Photobombs:

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They taught us about yarn bombing

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They taught us about the evolution of the Cell Phone

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They taught us about how Millennials get their news and entertainment from the web

—often at the same time

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Mainly, they taught us about digital humor, some of which was gender based

30(Eschholz-Rosa-Clark [2009]: 105)

Another Gender-Related Computer Joke

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…and still another

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Our students taught us about how errors get corrected in the digital age

I have a spelling checker.

It came with my PC.

It plane lee marks four my revue

Miss steaks aye can knot sea.

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One student taught us about Facebook Humor:

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Teachers and students viewed texting differently:

We Make Our Own Meanings

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Another student taught us about cell phone humor:

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Cell Phone Humor:Damn Auto-Correct!

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The teachers and students viewed cell phones differently:

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Still other students taught us about memes Here is the Lazy College Student Meme

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The Lincoln Meme

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The Philosophoraptor Meme

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And the Success Kid Meme

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Where do we go from here?Alleen, along with all of the students, kept a journal during the class.

Alleen also edited versions of the students’ term papers, and the entire class (under Alleen’s supervision) would like to publish a book—we’re looking for a publisher.

Kevin Risser, one of our students kept working with us during the Spring Semester; he will serve as a co-author of the book. We thank him for: •the insights he offered during the class, •writing some of the sections, and•helping us avoid errors that are typical for digital immigrants.

We also thank Arizona State University’s Emeritus College, and the Barrett Honors College for inaugurating this pioneering program for the emeritus faculty.

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Digital Humor Website

*ANIMATOR VS. ANIMATION II:http://www.metacafe.com/watch/689540/animator_vs_animation_2/

*CLEVERBOT:http://cleverbot.com/

*DAMN YOU AUTOCORRECT (JAY LENO SHOW):http://damnyouautocorrect.com/7264/video-damn-you-autocorrect-featured-on-the-

tonight-show-with-jay-leno/

*THE THE IMPOTENCE OF PROOFREADING (TAYLOR MALI):http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_rwB5_3PQc

*INTERNET SHOWS: “EQUALS THREE”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EwSAzHj8VM

*INTERNET SHOWS: “JAKE AND AMIR”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHIWsvfwcRw

*LOLSPEAK:http://www.speaklolspeak.com http://www.lolcatbible.com

*MONTY PYTHON “SPAM”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anwy2MPT5RE

*MY BLACKBERRY’S NOT WORKING:http://www.flixxy.com/my-blackberry-is-not-working.htm

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*PHOTOBOMBS:http://www.photobomb.com/ http://thefw.com/animal-photobombs/

*REDDIT:http://www.reddit.com/

*RELATABLE POSTS:http://pinterest.com/sorelatable/relatable-posts/ http://www.facebook.com/DailyRelatablePosts

*TOP 50 POPULAR TEXT & CHAT ACRONYMS (NETLINGO):http://www.netlingo.com/top50/popular-text-terms.php

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