Lacan, Psychoanalysis, and Comedy

Cutting-edge philosophers, psychoanalysts, literary theorists, and scholars use Freud and Lacan to shed light on laughter, humor, and the comic. Bringing together clinic, theory, and scholarship this compilation of essays offers an original mix with powerful interpretive implications.

List of contents

Introduction Patricia Gherovici and Manya Steinkoler; Part I. The Laughing Cure: 1. Sarah's laughter: where babies and humor come from Manya Steinkoler; 2. Psychoanalysis as Gai Saber: towards a new episteme of laughter Dany Nobus; 3. Laughing about nothing: Democritus and Lacan Patricia Gherovici; 4. The surplus jouissance of the joke: from Freud to Lacan Marcel Drach; 5. Can you spare a laugh? Lacan, Freud, and Marx on the economy of jokes Jean Michel Rabaté; 6. Mother Pumper and the analyst's donuts Jamieson Webster; 7. Not in the humor: bulimic dreams Carol Owens; Part II. Comedy on the Couch: 8. Psychoanalysis and tragicomedy: Measure for Measure after Zizek's Lacanian dialectics Geoff Boucher; 9. Comedy and the agency of the letter in A Midsummer Night's Dream Matthew Sharpe; 10. Jane Austen's wit-craft Molly Rothenberg; 11. The sexual politics of comedy: Henry James's 'The Chaperon' Sigi Jöttkandt; 12. Power in the closet: and its coming out Alenka Zupan¿i¿; Part III. He Who Laughs Last, Laughs Last: Epilogue: repetition, repetition, repetition: Richard Prince and the three R's Simon Critchley.

Product details

• Authors: Patricia Steinkoler Gherovici
• Assisted by: Gherovici Patricia (Editor), Steinkoler Manya (Editor)
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 24.07.2025
• EAN: 9781107450578
• ISBN: 978-1-107-45057-8
• No. of pages: 253
• Subjects: Fiction > Poetry, drama; Humanities, art, music > Psychology > Psychoanalysis; PSYCHOLOGY / General, LITERARY CRITICISM / Semiotics & Theory, Psychology, LITERARY COLLECTIONS / General, Literature: history & criticism, Literary theory, Literature: history and criticism, Biography, Literature and Literary studies