This thesis investigates the way in which tensions between the discursive dominance of the nuclear model and an acknowledgement of the plurality of family forms has been embodied in popular representations of fatherhood. Based on assumptions of gendered spheres of experience that define the domestic sphere as primarily ‘feminine’, fathers occupy an uncertain position within the discourse of the nuclear family. It is this ambiguous position, when contrasted with an assumption of their ultimate dominance, which creates confusion between the symbolic figure of the absent patriarch and the literal presence of the father within family life. Television, in particular, has regularly been forced to confront this dynamic between discursive absence and literal presence, due to the centrality of the nuclear family in both the commissioning and scheduling of programmes. Television’s representation of fatherhood regularly re-asserts or undermines patriarchal privilege by representing the father as a threat to the coherence of the family unit or as an overgrown adolescent who ultimately acquiesces to the ‘natural’ domestic authority of the female. In this way, popular television is able to continue restating a model of the patriarchal nuclear family, while simultaneously acknowledging its contested status as a norm of family life. As highly negotiated attempts to move beyond these common models have proven, however, this approach threatens to replicate a limited discourse of family life through incorporating variation into a single model, rather than broadening available representations. Through an analysis of the representation of fatherhood in the domestic comedy, this thesis begins by investigating the genre’s ability to invert traditional power relationships, allowing it to explore the limits of representing a coherent model of the nuclear family. Progressing to an analysis of the representation of fatherhood in television advertising, it goes on to examine the relationship between an acknowledgement of these limitations and idealised representations of family life within consumer culture. Incorporating a close reading of the ‘Adam’ series of adverts for British Telecom, their representation of a non-nuclear family unit and the role of the father within this unit, this work also considers the potential challenges and rewards of representing alternative models. Exploring both popular and academic discourses of family life throughout, this thesis concludes with a discussion of the possibility of imagining new forms of family that successfully include the father, and the threat to this process posed by their current incorporation into pre-existing representational models.

This paper analyses the emergent voices of young Indians in YouTube comedy sketches. As a format, YouTube comedy sketches have become popular among Indian youth for their ability to critique cultural norms, albeit with a sense of humor. Through a textual analysis of shows produced by YouTube comedy groups, this paper will survey the emergent voices in YouTube comedy and how they challenge mainstream Indian media. Comedy YouTube channels offer a humorous take on issues related to street harassment, marital rape, religion and politics. The content and design of the shows are aimed to dismantle existing portrayals of youth in Indian media and question tradition. The sketches usually show women and men redefining their identities and offering new perspectives on Indian issues by employing satire and parody. This paper therefore investigates how Indians are using humor to create traction for various issues and using YouTube as a platform to criticize gender norms.

Luís de Camões buscou na comédia romana da Antiguidade elementos estruturais para a construção de seu teatro renascentista. Dirigiu-se, sobretudo, ao texto Amphitruo (Anfitrião), de Plauto, uma comédia paliata romana, que serve de modelo, até os dias atuais, para muitos escritores. Deste modo, este trabalho tem por escopo analisar o diálogo que se pode entrever entre o Anfitrião camoniano e o plautino, tendo como base a construção das estruturas da comicidade. Pretende-se, ainda, analisar, a partir de passagens dessas duas peças, a visão humorística de cada autor sobre o espaço-temporal e o cotidiano em que cada um se insere / Luís de Camões sought in Roman comedy of the antiquity the structural elements to build your the Renaissance theater. He directed, primarily, to Amphitruo (Anfitrião ), by Plautus, the Roman paliata comedy , which serves as a model for this day , for many writers. Thus , this work has the purpose to analyze the dialogue that can be glimpsed between the Anfitrião, by Camões, and the plautino, based on the construction of the comic structures. The aim is also to analyze, from passages of these two parts, the humorous view of each author on the space-time and the daily life in which each operates

Luís de Camões buscou na comédia romana da Antiguidade elementos estruturais para a construção de seu teatro renascentista. Dirigiu-se, sobretudo, ao texto Amphitruo (Anfitrião), de Plauto, uma comédia paliata romana, que serve de modelo, até os dias atuais, para muitos escritores. Deste modo, este trabalho tem por escopo analisar o diálogo que se pode entrever entre o Anfitrião camoniano e o plautino, tendo como base a construção das estruturas da comicidade. Pretende-se, ainda, analisar, a partir de passagens dessas duas peças, a visão humorística de cada autor sobre o espaço-temporal e o cotidiano em que cada um se insere / Luís de Camões sought in Roman comedy of the antiquity the structural elements to build your the Renaissance theater. He directed, primarily, to Amphitruo (Anfitrião ), by Plautus, the Roman paliata comedy , which serves as a model for this day , for many writers. Thus , this work has the purpose to analyze the dialogue that can be glimpsed between the Anfitrião, by Camões, and the plautino, based on the construction of the comic structures. The aim is also to analyze, from passages of these two parts, the humorous view of each author on the space-time and the daily life in which each operates

There is a tendency amongst scholars to view comedic elements common to Roman Comedy, such as the tricky subordinate or the nagging wife, as part of a developing Western Comedic Tradition. The appearance of these characters in Medieval Japanese Kyōgen, a comedic art-form unconnected with Western Comedy, challenges this viewpoint and suggests that they are part of a wider comedic identity. This thesis compares and contrasts Roman Comedy and Kyōgen through their techniques of fear-alleviation, exploring the manner in which each culture addresses social anxieties. The first chapter explores the comedic master-slave/servant relationship through the medium of the tricky slave/servant. It examines how the motif of the tricky subordinate is used to alleviate contemporary fears of authority figures. Chapter 2 considers the other half of this relationship, focusing on authority’s fear of rebellion and how this is addressed through the loyal and/or stupid slave/servant. Chapter 3 explores the depiction of religious and supernatural figures in the two comedic forms and examines the methods by which these awe-inspiring beings are portrayed humorously and rendered harmless. The fourth chapter reflects on the treatment of illness in Roman Comedy and Kyōgen. It discusses how contemporary social anxieties regarding blind men (Medieval Japan) and the stigma of insanity and epilepsy (Rome) are alleviated through the humorous comedic depiction of blind and insane/epileptic characters. Chapter 5 explores the comedic presentation of professional figures. This chapter contrasts the boastful character of the comedic soldier of Roman Comedy with the braggart priest of Kyōgen. In Chapter 6, the focus is on the misogynistic treatment of wives in both comedic art-forms. This chapter explores contemporary fear of wives and how this fear is alleviated through their negative portrayal in comedy. This thesis finds that there is a strong correlation between Roman Comedy and Kyōgen, both in the types of social anxiety which they seek to alleviate and the methods by which they seek to accomplish this. It also finds that the motif of the tricky subordinate and the nagging wife are not just Western phenomena but that they are also present in the Eastern Comic Tradition. The comparison of Roman Comedy with Kyōgen, an unrelated comedic form, leads to an enhanced understanding of the role which these characters play in alleviating social anxiety. It also enables the consideration of stock characters in Roman comedy from a wider viewpoint, presenting an opportunity for scholars to re-evaluate characters such as the tricky subordinate and the nagging wife as products of a wider, universal comic tradition.

A farce, insofar as this study is concerned, is any afterpiece which has plot, dialogue, and characters. This embraces such widely scattered varieties as burlesque, dramatic satire, pastoral, comedy, and opera. This study embraces more than a hundred farces, the most popular ones of their day.

A Kingdom Jack’d is a satirical verse-play based on William Shakespeare’s Henry IV dramas. It opens in 1399 England, following the deposal of Richard II and what should have been the coronation of Henry IV. Instead, political machinations have thrust the clownish rogue John “Jack” Falstaff to the throne. With his band of cutthroats running court and the Lancasters reduced to mere rebels, Britain descends into chaos. The country’s only hope lies with Shakespeare’s literary creation Doll Tearsheet and his other peripheral, disempowered female characters. At play’s end, peace is gained with Falstaff’s flight into exile and the dismantling of patriarchal order.

Last Night in Americaland is a collection of poems of life, death, terror, refusal, confusion, America, music, geography, place, love, friendship, hope, and the past.

Thesis advisor: John Sallis / Plato’s interlocutors discuss at length about psychology, politics, poetry, cosmology, education, nature, and the gods, in short, about the things that inscribe the transcendent and the grounding poles of human life. It stands to reason that what we wish to glean from Plato’s thinking will show itself more readily if we remain attentive to the self-undermining and the subversive elements of the dialogues. I call the interpretation, which follows the shape- and, hence, meaning-shifting structure of Plato’s writing, “paradigmatic procedure.” By this I do not mean that we ought to find, explain, and then interpretively apply to the whole of Plato’s thought any particular passages from the Republic, the Timaeus, or the Statesman, which mention paradigms. However, I, following Benardete, propose that “Plato must have learned from poets” who produced epos, tragedy, comedy, and myth. This means that Plato borrows these poetic elements and form when he writes the philosophical dialogues. Paradigmatic method of interpretation is conscious of the dramatic form. It situates and analyzes the arguments made both through speeches and through actions as these arise out of the play of literary images. The latter, in their turn, are made up of the tripartite convergence between the dialogical characters, their speeches, and their deeds. Depending on the colorations that the three impart to one another, the images of Plato are comic, tragic, or, which is most often the case, they are tragicomic. The dramatic tone of a given image, once it is detected, reflects back onto the dialogical discussion or account and presents the argument in this newly discovered light. It often happens that the difference between the initial and the paradigmatic reading is so drastic that the straightforward meaning of the studied passage is undone as Plato’s writing begins to show its self-undermining nature. This does not mean that Plato’s philosophizing, also, is undone. On the contrary, when we begin to think together with and through Plato’s subversive writing, instead of retrofitting our lives to some systems that may arise out of it and instead of forcing it to substantiate our views, then we begin to get a sense for the liberating force of Plato’s philosophy. In chapter one, I explain the relationship between paradigms and the tragicomic character of Plato’s writing. Consequently, I offer a reading of select passages from the Timaeus and from the Republic. My discoveries showcase how paradigms inform and how the paradigmatic reading uncovers the tragic dimension of the Timaeus. I show how comedy shines through the, seemingly, most serious passages in the Republic. Plato’s dialogues do not strictly divide into the tragic, comic, epic, mythic, sophistic, or pre-Socratic ones, but rather, most are woven out of all of these orientations. Nonetheless, it is safe to say that within parts or passages, such as those from the Republic, for example, a given form and theme is most pronounced. I turn to the examination of tragedy in the second chapter. There, I first argue that Sophocles’ Oedipus is a tyrant and then I expose the relationship between the psychopathology of tyranny, tragedy, and poetry in books VIII and IX of the Republic. The third chapter carries on the exploration of pathology and offers an examination of tyranny and the soul in the Timaeus. Paradigmatic analysis plays up the theatricality of the Timaeus and identifies several axes around which the dialogical accounts revolve. The three main horizons are made up of nous, necessity, and dream or choric logic. These are fleshed out by the distention given to the dialogical arguments through the enmeshment of φύσις, μῦθος, and πόλις. The fourth kind of emphasis, senselessness, ushers the dialogue’s grotesquely humorous ending and prepares the readers for the considerations of comedy in the fourth chapter of the present work. The comedy of divisions, mythic tall tales, the halving and the fitting cuts, with which Plato’s Statesman is woven through and through, reveal statesmanship’s sinister underbelly. If it were not for the comedic tone, the fourth chapter argues, the monstrousness of tyranny, which is interred in all of the paradigms entertained as models of rule in the Statesman, would have remained unseen. Attunement to the comical passages and references, in the Statesman, is made expedient by an analysis of tyranny in Aristophanes’ Lysistrata. The fifth and final chapter sees to the convergence of the speciously opposite forms and themes. Tragedy is brought together with comedy, poetry with philosophy, and theater with ordinary life under the auspices of the twice-born god, Dionysus. The Dionysian, duplicitously evasive, nature is shown to be contemporaneous with the double-edged nature of shame. The contemplation of shame in Sophocles’ Oedipus and Aristophanes’ Clouds, aids the investigation of the humanity preserving and the corrupting role of shame in Plato’s Gorgias. The findings of the final chapter serve to locate the pressure points of pathology and tyranny as these recede into the tragicomic dramas of our lives. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2017. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.

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