Using Lacanian psychoanalysis, as well as its pre-history and afterlives, In the Event of Laughter argues for a new framework for discussing laughter. Responding to a tradition of ‘comedy studies’ that has been interested only in the causes of laughter (in why we laugh), it proposes a different relationship between laughter and causality. Ultimately it argues that laughter is both cause and effect, troubling chronological time and asking for a more nuanced way of conceiving the relationship between subjects and their laughter than existing theories have accounted for. Making this visible via psychoanalytic ideas of retroactivity, Alfie Bown explores how laughter – far from being a mere response to a stimulus – changes the relationship between the present, the past and the future. Bown investigates this hypothesis in relation to a range of comic texts from the ‘history of laughter,’ discussing Chaucer, Shakespeare, Kafka and Chaplin, as well as lesser-known but vital figures from the comic genre.
| ISBN: | 9781501364136 |
| Publication date: | 28th May 2020 |
| Author: | Prof Alfie Independent Scholar, UK Bown |
| Publisher: | Bloomsbury Academic USA an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 168 pages |
| Series: | Psychoanalytic Horizons |
| Genres: |
Literary theory Psychoanalytical and Freudian psychology Popular philosophy |
Using Lacanian psychoanalysis, as well as its pre-history and afterlives, In the Event of Laughter argues for a new framework for discussing laughter. Responding to a tradition of ‘comedy studies’ that has been interested only in the causes of laughter (in why we laugh), it proposes a different relationship between laughter and causality. Ultimately it argues that laughter is both cause and effect, troubling chronological time and asking for a more nuanced way of conceiving the relationship between subjects and their laughter than existing theories have accounted for. Making this visible via psychoanalytic ideas of retroactivity, Alfie Bown explores how laughter – far from being a mere response to a stimulus – changes the relationship between the present, the past and the future. Bown investigates this hypothesis in relation to a range of comic texts from the ‘history of laughter,’ discussing Chaucer, Shakespeare, Kafka and Chaplin, as well as lesser-known but vital figures from the comic genre.
In the Event of Laughter features in the following genres: Literary theory, Psychoanalytical and Freudian psychology, Popular philosophy
In the Event of Laughter is available in Paperback, Hardback
In the Event of Laughter was written by Prof Alfie Independent Scholar, UK Bown and published by Bloomsbury Academic USA an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
In the Event of Laughter has 168 pages
Yes it is part of Psychoanalytic Horizons series