This critical intervention in the study of the comic investigates how the comic act is also an expressive and performative act that precedes philosophical conceptualisation. The book puts Bergson, philosophy and the body at the centre of its investigation to explore different aspects of the field, from the history and philosophy of comedy to film and psychoanalysis. The volume develops a theoretical and practice-based framework that will be a valuable resource for students, scholars and practitioners alike in the fields of philosophy, literary studies, theatre and performance studies and comedy studies.

List of Contributors: Caterina Angela Agus, Fred Dalmasso, Lisabeth During, Xavier Escribano, Giovanni Fusetti, Davide Giovanzana, Josephine Gray, María J. Ortega Máñez, Meg Mumford, Jean-Michel Rabaté, Carolyn Shapiro, Lisa Trahair

Josephine Gray is co-artistic director of Iraqi Bodies, a theatre group based in Gothenburg, Sweden, dedicated to exploring the links between movement and gesture, dance and physical theatre. Her experimental practice is anchored in the theory and method of Artaud, Grotowski, Ionesco and Beckett, among others. She trained at the École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris and studied philosophy at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and English literature at the University of Sheffield.

Lisa Trahair teaches in film studies at the University of New South Wales, Australia. She is author ofThe Comedy of Philosophy: Sense and Nonsense in Early Cinematic Slapstick. She has published widely on film comedy and on the philosophy of comedy in journals devoted to film and the theoretical humanities and has co-edited several special issues of journals on the intersection of film and philosophy.

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1. Comedy: Towards an Alternative History of Mimesis, by María J. Ortega Máñez

Chapter 2. The Two Laughters of Lecoq: The Clown and theBouffon, by Caterina Angela Agus, Giovani Fusetti and Davide Giovanzana

Chapter 3. The Masked Comic Figure in Alain Badious Philosophy, by Fred Dalmasso

Chapter 4. The Body that Laughs and Cries: Helmuth Plessners Keys to Anthropology and Theatre, by Xavier Escribano

Chapter 5. Valentin, Brecht and Comic Inelasticity: Ridiculing Rigidity as an Impediment to Social Change, by Meg Mumford

Chapter 6. Happiness, Dead and Alive: Object Theatre as Philosophy of the Encounter, by Carolyn Shapiro

Chapter 7. Living in the Doll House: Cavell, Comedy andThe Ladies Man, by Lisa Trahair

Chapter 8. Trouble in Paradise?: Impotence and Comedy, by Lisabeth During

Chapter 9. Only What Is Born Lives: Kafka L.O.L., by Jean-Michel Rabaté

Chapter 10. The Grotesque: Comic Performance and the Paradox of Acting, by Josephine Gray

About the Authors