Joker and Philosophy

MASSIMILIANO L. CAPPUCCIO is a Senior Researcher in the School of Engineering & Technology of the University of New South Wales Canberra, Australia. He has contributed to several Pop Culture and Philosophy titles and edited a collection of essays on The Matrix. GEORGE A. DUNN is a research fellow at the Institute for the Marxist Study of Religion in a New Era at Hangzhou City University, China, and a community associate at Indiana University Indianapolis. He is an editor of The Hunger Games and Philosophy and True Blood and Philosophy and has written chapters in books in the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture series on Terminator, Iron Man, Battlestar Galactica, and Mad Men. JASON T. EBERL is Professor of Health Care Ethics and Philosophy and Director of the Albert Gnaegi Center for Health Care Ethics, Saint Louis University, USA. He is the editor of Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy and co-editor of The Ultimate Star Wars and Philosophy, The Ultimate Star Trek and Philosophy, Sons of Anarchy and Philosophy, and The Philosophy of Christopher Nolan.

Notes on Contributors ix

Introduction: "There Were These Two Guys in a Lunatic Asylum …" 1

Part I "Is It Just Me or Is It Getting Crazier Out There?"--Living with the Absurd 3

1 It's All Just a Sick Joke: Joker, Batman, and the Absurd 5
Erich Christiansen

2 "Do I Look Like a Man with a Plan?": The Joker as a Daoist Wild Card 14
Ryan Harte and Alba Curry

3 The Dionysian Clown: Analyzing the Fool through Nietzsche's Philosophy 22
Marco Favaro

4 The Clown Prince of Chaos: Philosophy and the Fear of Indetermination 32
Alberto Morán Roa

Part II "I'm an Agent of Chaos"--The Good, the Bad, and the Crazy 39

5 Good and Evil: The Two Jokers in Plato's Deck of Cards 41
James Lawler

6 Radical Evil, Diabolical Evil, and The Dark Knight's Joker 49
George A. Dunn

7 "When the Chips Are Down, These Civilized People, They'll Eat Each Other": The Joker's Anti-Hobbesian State of Nature 59
Damien K. Picariello

8 You Get What You F****** Deserve 68
Greg Littmann

Part III "When You Bring Me Out, Can You Introduce Me as Joker?"--Joker's Identity 77

9 From Momus to the Joker: Genealogy of an Anti-Hero 79
Massimiliano L. Cappuccio

10 Tell a Joke, Be a Hero: Joker and the Trickster Archetype 88
Andrea Zanin

11 The Contradictory Clown Prince of Crime 96
Roy T. Cook and Nathan Kellen

12 "If I Am Going to Have a Past, I Prefer It to Be Multiple Choice": The Joker, Madness, and Metafiction 106
Jan Forsman

13 Madness in Relation: The Autonomy of a Joke 117
Shaun Respess

Part IV "Their Morals, Their Code-It's a Bad Joke"--Joker's Justice and Political Philosophy 127

14 More on Joker: From Apolitical Nihilism to a New Left--Or Why Trump Is No Joker 129
Slavoj Zizek

15 "If It Was Me Dying on the Sidewalk, You'd Walk Right over Me": Joker's Guide to Responding to Injustice 139
Luke Howie

16 Battleground Gotham: Joker's War on Capitalism 148
Clint Jones

Part V "Why So Serious?"--Laughter, Humor, and Satire 157

17 In Praise of Joker 159
Walter Barta and Emily Vega

18 Joker--The Epitome of Humor in Three Silly Acts 169
Jarno Hietalahti

19 Ha-Ha-Ha! I'm Going to Die!: Laughing at Death with Joker, Jerry, and Deleuze 176
Corry Shores

20 "Perhaps Even Laughter Still Has a Future": Joker's Carnivalesque Politics 186
Utku Cansu

Part VI "You and I Are Destined to Do This Forever"--Significant Others, Reason, and Sanity 197

21 "Puddin'" Her Place: Harley Quinn as Joker's Enslaved Lover 199
Elizabeth Kusko and Caleb McGee Husmann

22 The Stoic Punchline of "One Bad Day" 207
Matt Hummel

23 The Joke's on You: Brains, Responsibility, and the Myth of Mental Illness Revisited 215
Thomas D. Harter

24 Joker and the Need for Fathers and Family 225
Kody W. Cooper