Joey and Chandler. Will and Grace. Lucy and Ethel. Classic TV couples such as these capture that warm, reassuring, nostalgic, and ever-reliable thing we call ‘friendship’. As easy as it is to identify these dynamic duos as ‘friends’, though, it may be harder still to define the twisty term ‘friendship’ when we account for its origins, history, boundaries, and many complexities. A relationship of free choice rather than institutional foundation, friendship is a useful lens through which we may explore the concept of community in popular culture and literature. Today, Facebook may tell us how many friends we have. Sometimes our personalized ranking systems determine our best friend(s). But what about the others? What about our ‘relatives’, ‘gal pals’, ‘bros’, ‘buddies, or (worse) ‘acquaintances’? Why are they not ‘friends’? What has the status of friendship been over the centuries and what is its place in our modern world?

This course invites reflections on and curiosities about representations of friendship in literature and on screen, from antiquity to today. We will start by reading early attempts at defining what friendship consists of according to ancient and Renaissance philosophers. While gaining a historicized understanding of some influential representations of friendship, we will consider among its many narrative dynamics: the patron and the artist, the master and the slave, the enamored and the unaware, platonic friends, ‘frenemies’, ‘bromances’, and female friendships. Our discussions of how class, gender, and social boundaries impact friendships in literary texts will prepare us for looking toward contemporary culture and witnessing the politics of friendship represented in modern television and film.

Among the reading and viewing questions we might ask are: Are friends alike or do opposites attract? Can a good friendship end? What are the unique and essential qualities of friendship? How might friendship transcend or refuse strict social, political, or economic categories? How do specific life events (i.e. traveling, maturing, etc.) affect or determine friendships? How and why does friendship demand high ethical stakes concerning loyalty and trust? To what degree do friends expect honesty, transparency, and sincerity from one another? To what are friends bound?

Literary texts will include: Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (Books VIII-IX); Cicero, On Friendship; Boccaccio, Decameron [selections]; Michelangelo, Poems for Vittoria Colonna; Vittoria Colonna, Sonnets for Michelangelo; Michele de Montaigne, Of Friendship; Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote [selections]; Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing; Moderata Fonte, The Worth of Women [selections]; Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Friendship,” “Self-Reliance”; Toni Morrison, Sula; C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (“Friendship,” “Charity”); Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend; plus New Yorker essays and other relevant newspaper articles.

Television shows and films may include: Thelma and Louise (1991); The Truman Show (1998); Mean Girls (2004) [clips]; Friends (1994-2004) [clips]; How I Met Your Mother (2005-2014) [clips]

*Additionally, songs, paintings, and other visual materials will be introduced in class.

With the new friends you will meet in this course, we will develop and sharpen the skills of close reading, critical thinking, and clear, articulate writing. These skills are fundamental preparation for all work you will do throughout your college career. In addition to three formal essays, we will work through exercises in style, register, and grammar. Essential to the writing process will be workshopping one another’s work through rough drafts and peer review. Several shorter writing assignments will be assigned that focus specifically on the practice of close reading. I ask that students keep an ongoing writing journal throughout the semester as they complete the weekly reading assignments.

Due to the high demand for R&C courses we monitor attendance very carefully. Attendance is mandatory the first two weeks of classes, this includes all enrolled and wait listed students. If you do not attend all classes the first two weeks you may be dropped. If you are attempting to add into this class during weeks 1 and 2 and did not attend the first day, you will be expected to attend all class meetings thereafter and, if space permits, you may be enrolled from the wait list.