Laughter as Politics

Explores the role of laughter in constructing, preserving, and transforming contemporary social and political life Politics today is awash with laughter. From the late-night liberal satire machine to the insult comedy of Donald Trump, from comedians winning elected office to religious militants murdering cartoonists: laughter is a key source, object, and means of political discourse and action. In this age of hilarity, the traditional philosophical question of whether laughter should play a role in politics is increasingly obsolete and a focus on how laughter operates politically is needed instead. Laughter as Politics turns to the accounts of laughter offered by Thomas Hobbes, Theodor Adorno, Ralph Ellison, and feminist and queer thinkers like Hélène Cixous and Judith Butler to develop a critical theory of laughter that illuminates laughter as a privileged site wherein the contemporary social order constructs, preserves, and transforms itself politically. This book finds that laughter's outsized presence in the current moment - so much laughter in such dark times - reflects the multiplicity of fascistic dangers and democratic opportunities that this moment affords. Patrick T. Giamario is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.