Laughter As Politics

Critical Theory in an Age of Hilarity

By: Patrick Giamario

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Paperback | 30 January 2023

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212 Pages

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23.4 x 15.6 x 1.5

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Explores the role that laughter plays in constructing, preserving and transforming contemporary social and political life Provides the first full-length study of the politics of laughter Rejects the traditional, normative question of whether laughter should play a role in politics in favour of a new, critical question of how laughter operates politically Advances a critical theory of laughter that challenges the conventional wisdom that laughter is a naturally emancipatory experience Critically re-reads the accounts of laughter offered by Thomas Hobbes, Theodor Adorno, Ralph Ellison and feminist and queer theorists such as H l ne Cixous and Judith Butler Demonstrates the contemporary relevance of these theoretical accounts through analyses of recent events of laughter including the 2010 Jon Stewart Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear"; Jordan Peele's 2017 film Get Out; and Hannah Gadsby's 2018 Netflix special Nanette Offers the theoretical resources to make sense of the political stakes and possibilities of the present Age of Hilarity

Industry Reviews

Laughter as Politics is an exemplary work of critical political theory. Patrick T. Giamario develops a critique of laughter, which neither denounces nor affirms, but instead shows how laughter is shaped by power and how power is unleashed in laughter, how laughter destabilizes the opposition between logos and phone and exposes the limits of liberalism, how laughter upholds a social order and sustains the imagination of something beyond it. Giamario sets aside the question of whether we should be laughing, at our political leaders or their followers, so that he can ask the more difficult question of what we are doing when we laugh and how our laughter shapes and is shaped by politics. His answers, drawing from Thomas Hobbes, Theodor Adorno, Ralph Ellison, and a number of contemporary feminist and queer theorists, are sophisticated and insightful.

--Robyn Marasco, CUNY

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