Education Quote by Shelley Berman

A comedian name-dropping a Master of Professional Writing program is already a punchline, and Shelley Berman knows it. The line stages a collision between two worlds that rarely share a classroom: the credentialed seriousness of an MFA-adjacent program and the unruly, low-status craft of getting laughs. By placing himself "in" the program and "teaching Humor Writing, Literary and Dramatic", Berman borrows academia's prestige while quietly mocking its need to certify what comedy has always treated as street knowledge. The phrasing has that Berman-ish, slightly formal rhythm, like someone wearing a borrowed suit: professional, correct, and just stiff enough to feel funny.

The intent isn't to brag so much as to needle. Comedy, especially in Berman's era, was built on timing, voice, and risk, not rubrics. So when he presents humor as a course title with sub-specializations, he's exposing the absurdity of institutionalizing something that depends on breaking rules. "Literary and Dramatic" reads like a bureaucratic add-on, the kind of language that sanitizes the messy business of performance into syllabus-friendly categories. The subtext: if you can teach humor, you can also drain it.

Context matters. Berman was a pioneer of conversational, character-driven stand-up, one of the figures who helped make comedy "respectable" enough to end up in universities in the first place. This quote catches that cultural moment when stand-up starts getting archived, analyzed, and professionalized. Berman plays along, but with the sideways grin of someone who knows the joke might be on the institution.