Lacan, Psychoanalysis, and Comedy

Cover......Page 1
Half-title......Page 3
Title page......Page 5
Copyright information......Page 6
Table of contents......Page 7
Introduction......Page 9
 In the Beginning was Laughter......Page 11
 Comedy of the sexes......Page 12
 ‘‘Love is a comic feeling’’......Page 13
 Dying of laughter......Page 14
 Don’t Cut the Comedy!......Page 15
 Comedy’s Power......Page 19
 Laughing stock......Page 21
 The laughing cure......Page 23
 Lacan on laughter - a new kind of LOL......Page 24
 Lacan.com-edy......Page 25
 Works cited......Page 29
Part I The laughing cure......Page 31
 Chapter 1 Sarah’s laughter: Where babies and humor come from......Page 33
  Works cited......Page 43
  Encounter with a fantasist......Page 44
  Jacques Lacan is gay......Page 47
  Gay psychoanalysis......Page 57
  Episteme of laughter......Page 62
  Works cited......Page 66
 Chapter 3 Laughing about nothing: Democritus and Lacan......Page 68
  Works cited......Page 79
  The techniques of the Joke (Witz)......Page 81
   Condensation: First approach to ‘‘The Wit of the Witz’’......Page 84
  The surplus jouissance of the Witz......Page 86
  Works cited......Page 89
 Chapter 5 Can you spare a laugh? Lacan, Freud, and Marx on the economy of jokes1......Page 90
  I......Page 91
  II......Page 96
  III......Page 103
  IV......Page 107
  Works cited......Page 111
 Chapter 6 Mother-pumper and the analyst’s donuts......Page 112
  Works cited......Page 120
 Chapter 7 Not in the humor: Bulimic dreams......Page 121
  Dry humor......Page 123
  Wet humor......Page 125
  Superego: Friend or foe?......Page 128
   II......Page 133
  Afterword......Page 136
  Works cited......Page 137
Part II Comedy on the couch......Page 139
  Bringing Lacan to A Midsummer Night’s Dream......Page 141
  ‘‘Love in idleness’’and the midsummer night’s dreamers’ structural dance......Page 148
  From metonymy (Puck) to the paternal metaphor (Oberon/Theseus): The midsummer night’s dreamwork......Page 152
   Metonymy......Page 153
   Metaphor, restoring sense to floating signifiers......Page 156
  Concluding remarks: On love, psychoanalysis and comedy......Page 158
  Works cited......Page 162
 Chapter 9 Psychoanalysis and tragicomedy: Measure for Measure after Zizek’s Lacanian dialectics......Page 164
  Tragicomedy as specifically modern......Page 165
  ‘‘The superego is law run amok’’......Page 168
  Elizabethan tragicomedy and the crisis of symbolic authority......Page 172
  Angelo......Page 175
  Isabella......Page 180
  Lucio......Page 186
  Vincentio......Page 188
  Works Cited......Page 190
  Introduction......Page 192
  The paradoxical ego ideal......Page 195
  The ideal king of comedy......Page 197
  The restoration wit tradition......Page 199
  Burney’s narrative invention......Page 202
  Austen’s wit-craft......Page 206
  The particular universal of love......Page 210
  Works cited......Page 213
 Chapter 11 The perambulatory process: Eros, wit and society-testing in Henry James’s ‘‘The Chaperon’’......Page 214
  Works cited......Page 226
 Chapter 12 Power in the closet (and its coming out)......Page 227
  Works cited......Page 241
Part III He who laughs last, laughs last......Page 243
 Epilogue: Repetition, repetition, repetition: Richard Prince and the three r’s......Page 245
Index......Page 251