Winter 2023, CairoShort Course
On the culture of irony
Course details
- Cycle
- Winter 2023, Cairo
- Length
- 8 weeks
- Format
- In person
- Taught in
- English
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About the course
Irony is everywhere. You’ll find it in your guilty pleasure sitcom, in a political discussion you overhear in a café, or in the commercial of your favorite cereal brand (Temmy’s!). The internet is flooded with memes, which often contain multiple ironic layers. Hence, if one agrees with the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, who wrote that “a life that may be called human begins with irony”, we seem to be, like, well, living in one of the best of all possible worlds.
This course offers the opportunity to engage with irony’s myriad forms and disguises. For in spite of its ubiquity in contemporary culture, irony remains a notoriously difficult concept to comprehend. We will not only discuss how an ironic pose is rooted in philosophical assumptions about the relationship between consciousness and material reality, but also draw inspiration from Plato, Spongebob and Egyptian television. And what to think of social media such as TikTok, where even serious issues such as mental health are ironized?
Who teaches it
Coen holds a degree in Philosophy and Arabic from the University of Amsterdam and the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo (NVIC). He is interested in (post-)Kantian philosophy and the way in which (unconscious) philosophical assumptions influence everyday life and the organisation of different communities.
Course flow
Sessions without a date
Content: course outline; why irony is interesting; sukhriya; irony, sarcasm, satire; irony as philosophy; what is philosophy.
- Dictionaries
- Alanis Morissette – Ironic
- Rasha Hilwe article
- Bassem Yousef
- Assignment: Bring an example of irony you’ve encountered to next week’s class.
Content: verbal, situational, cosmic and dramatic irony; the difficulty or impossibility of defining irony; objective and subjective irony.
- The story of Solomon and the Angel of Death
- Spongebob – Hide and then what happens
Content: the Socratic problem; Socratic/complex irony; the art of living; irony as a pose.
- ApologyPlato.
- Socrates: Ironist and Moral PhilosopherGregory Vlastos.
- The Chinese RestaurantSeinfeld.
Content: romanticism; paradox of consciousness; the finite and the infinite.
- Angel of DeathAl-Ma’arri, poem.
- On Incomprehensibility and Fragments 42, 108Friedrich Schlegel.
Content: irony as negativity; sincerity.
- On the Concept of IronySøren Kierkegaard.
- Chic Ironic BitternessRobert J. McGill jr.
Content: Poe’s law; irony punctuation; alternating caps.
- “Damn I Didn’t Know Y’all Was Sad? I Thought It Was Just Memes”: Irony, Memes and Risk in Internet Depression CultureLucie Chateau.
- Finding Ola
Content: irony and cynicism; indifference; escape from irony.
- Critique of Cynical ReasonPeter Sloterdijk.
- Rick and MortyExcerpts from S03E09 and S03E10.
- Assignment: 2000 word essay.
Content: the future of irony; post-irony.
- Ironic LifeRichard J. Bernstein.
- David Foster Wallace on irony
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