Author

Amy Kielmeyer

Date of Award

December 2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

English

First Advisor

Sharon Carson

Abstract

Sitcoms have been an enduring part of television history, but for as much as they have been an important part of the ways we’ve interacted with television, they have also been criticized over the years for being too the same, too unrealistic, for avoiding complexity, and minimizing the lived experiences of many people. These critiques are necessary, but they can also overlook some of the ways that these very critiques are part of what makes the sitcom a valuable vehicle for telling familiar stories. Using sitcoms, obituaries, and poetry, this collection of creative nonfiction offers ways of looking at sitcoms that better lend themselves to considering sitcoms and the people we love with more depth.

“Life in Sitcoms: Episodes in Love and Loss” is organized in the shape of a sitcom episode, as one might appear on network television. The whole collection is commentary on the ways the form of a sitcom episode, in its simplicity, can open up room for considering complex ideas and how the form itself can actually become more complex as the individual pieces are placed side by side and read together, much like a season of a sitcom. The collection includes short narrative histories of sitcoms in the 21st century, personal essays that use sitcoms to show how they can speak to real life, lyric essays that highlight the importance of language to mimic dialogue in sitcoms, and braided essays, or what I have called “knotted essays,” that emphasize how sitcom storylines carry across episodes, seasons, and even shows, but also how the relationships and memories we hold onto need tending as time passes.

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