Funny Things Students Say

Kathryn Barrett-Gaines, Ph.D.

UMES Director of African American Studies

Funny things students say.

Kathryn Barrett-Gaines, Ph.D.

  

“I don’t know if my keys are clean enough to be in a baby’s mouth!”  I overheard this odd sentence while strolling in Central Park one New York day.  I enjoy the one odd sentence heard out of the context of its conversation.  One odd sentence is worth a thousand words.

I sometimes hear the one odd sentence on the UMES campus.  UMES has funny people.  I love funny people.

One evening in November 2012, I was walking past Kiah, carrying my inflatable globe.  My globe is really a beach ball.  I carry my beach ball world to all my classes.  My beach ball is a satellite view of the world.  I reject those globes which are plastered with a political map.  The actual world has no borders or lines.  The actual world is land and sea and clouds and living things.  To teach this idea is the reason I carry my beach ball globe. 

So, I’m carrying my globe in front of Kiah.  I pass a group of young men walking the opposite direction.  One clever young man says, about me but not to me, “That’s the original GPS, right there.”

That guy is funny.  I love funny people.  I hope that guy enrolls in one of my courses before he graduates.  Funny people are smart.  I love funny people.  I love smart people.

In fact, I hope he enrolls in my course on the history of black comedy.  I’m offering Black Comedy this Spring, on Thursdays from 5 to 7:30 pm.  We will read, think, write, laugh, and perform.  The course is HIST 489-201, Special Topics.  Black Comedy is a special topic.

I teach comedy because I can.  I can teach anything I like because everything has a history and everything teaches history.  I teach comedy because good comedians are important intellectuals who deal in ideas with their great minds.  Not all comedians are good comedians; my job as professor is to weed through and bring forth the good.

What is important in life?  Compassion, justice, and comedy.  Come by on Thursday evenings, Henson 1111, for a little of all three.

UMES Family!

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