Humor comes in handy for senior rhetorician
Comedy is something we can all appreciate and, to some degree, many need it in one form or another to keep them from going crazy.
On Dec. 2, senior rhetoric major Grace Greene is going to touch upon that feeling for her senior capstone performance.
“I wanted to do something that would be fun,” Greene said. “I know this semester they were letting us do performance studies, and this was something I could do a performance with.”
This being the first semester the Department of English and Rhetoric would let the seniors do performance studies for their capstones, Mark Vail, rhetoric professor and Greene’s capstone teacher, said this was the first time he had seen a student do anything like this in his four years at Georgia College.
“Grace is the first person to incorporate the performance studies aspect of the program,” Vail said. “Hers is unique in that she’s created her own rhetorical artifact using humor theory.”
Notwithstanding those in the Department of English and Rhetoric, Greene attributes her inspiration and preparation to one person.
“Honestly, what I did was made a Pandora for comedy, and I listened to it every morning when I was getting ready,” Greene said. “I made it under Aziz Ansari. I’m going to give all credit to Aziz.”
Listening to Ansari and other comedians like him helped her understand and prepare what she was going to do for her final performance.
“I learned a lot of things that were effective by listening to him and how not to do things,” Greene said. “I’m doing this for my parents, my professors and the general public so I can’t do anything that is racist or sexist or use bad language.”
Vail appreciates and understands the risk in taking this route with her capstone.
“I think it’s daring, it’s dangerous, but that’s what good scholarship is, and good scholarship pushes the boundaries,” Vail said.
Just because Greene’s capstone performance is stand-up comedy doesn’t mean she’s simply preparing a set of jokes to tell on stage.
“The rhetoric capstone is a research project in which students synthesize their previous rhetoric experiences and draw upon three different classes they’ve taken,” Vail said.
Over the course of the semester Vail has been an integral stepping stone in preparing Greene for her capstone, but the preparation really started with her first rhetoric class.
“I know he was always available during his office hours and sometimes outside of those for me,” Greene said. “All of my teachers helped me in one way or another. Dr. Vail and Dr. Clark helped me to understand things like rhetorical theory better, and Dr. Burt and Dr. Dillard helped me understand more of the performance aspect of everything.”
Half joking, Greene says she wishes there was one thing that would change about the rhetoric capstone.
“In a lot of ways I wish it was a year long, and I’m sure if they change it everyone will hate me, but it was just such and awesome experience.”
Greene will finish her undergraduate degree in the spring and has plans to attend graduate school and continue developing her skills.
“I’ve applied to Colorado, North Carolina and South Carolina,” Greene said. “If I get into Colorado that’s where I’m going. I have family out there, and I absolutely love it there.”
After her scholastic career is finished, Greene wants to pursue a career in either radio or voice-over work.
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