Description
Book SynopsisPresents an innovative and comprehensive theory of comedy. Using a wealth of examples from high and popular culture and with careful attention to the treatment of humour in philosophy, Todd McGowan locates the universal source of comedy in the interplay of the opposing concepts
lack and
excess.
Trade ReviewOnly a Joke Can Save Us offers a master class in psychoanalysis masquerading as a master class in comedy. McGowan’s theory yields powerful, persuasive, original insights into examples as varied as classic cinema, Jewish jokes, Kierkegaard, and Shakespeare. This master class will be thoroughly enjoyed by philosophers, cultural critics, affect theorists, and psychoanalytic thinkers alike."" - Anna Kornbluh, author of
Realizing Capital: Financial and Psychic Economies in Victorian Realist FormTable of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: The Similar and the Dissimilar
- Lack and Excess
- Theory and Opposition
- Tragedy and Pathos
- Philosophy and the Finite
- Signification and Desire
- Distance and Proximity
- Outside and Inside
- Politics and Comedy
- Conclusion: Speculation and Levity
