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 ixIntroduction: "There Were These Two Guys in a Lunatic Asylum …" 1Part I "Is It Just Me or Is It Getting Crazier Out There?"--Living with the Absurd 31 It's All Just a Sick Joke: Joker, Batman, and the Absurd 5Erich Christiansen2 "Do I Look Like a Man with a Plan?": The Joker as a Daoist Wild Card 14Ryan Harte and Alba Curry3 The Dionysian Clown: Analyzing the Fool through Nietzsche's Philosophy 22Marco Favaro4 The Clown Prince of Chaos: Philosophy and the Fear of Indetermination 32Alberto Morán RoaPart II "I'm an Agent of Chaos"--The Good, the Bad, and the Crazy 395 Good and Evil: The Two Jokers in Plato's Deck of Cards 41James Lawler6 Radical Evil, Diabolical Evil, and The Dark Knight's Joker 49George A. Dunn7 "When the Chips Are Down, These Civilized People, They'll Eat Each Other": The Joker's Anti-Hobbesian State of Nature 59Damien K. Picariello8 You Get What You F****** Deserve 68Greg LittmannPart III "When You Bring Me Out, Can You Introduce Me as Joker?"--Joker's Identity 779 From Momus to the Joker: Genealogy of an Anti-Hero 79Massimiliano L. Cappuccio10 Tell a Joke, Be a Hero: Joker and the Trickster Archetype 88Andrea Zanin11 The Contradictory Clown Prince of Crime 96Roy T. Cook and Nathan Kellen12 "If I Am Going to Have a Past, I Prefer It to Be Multiple Choice": The Joker, Madness, and Metafiction 106Jan Forsman13 Madness in Relation: The Autonomy of a Joke 117Shaun RespessPart IV "Their Morals, Their Code-It's a Bad Joke"--Joker's Justice and Political Philosophy 12714 More on Joker: From Apolitical Nihilism to a New Left--Or Why Trump Is No Joker 129Slavoj Zizek15 "If It Was Me Dying on the Sidewalk, You'd Walk Right over Me": Joker's Guide to Responding to Injustice 139Luke Howie16 Battleground Gotham: Joker's War on Capitalism 148Clint JonesPart V "Why So Serious?"--Laughter, Humor, and Satire 15717 In Praise of Joker 159Walter Barta and Emily Vega18 Joker--The Epitome of Humor in Three Silly Acts 169Jarno Hietalahti19 Ha-Ha-Ha! I'm Going to Die!: Laughing at Death with Joker, Jerry, and Deleuze 176Corry Shores20 "Perhaps Even Laughter Still Has a Future": Joker's Carnivalesque Politics 186Utku CansuPart VI "You and I Are Destined to Do This Forever"--Significant Others, Reason, and Sanity 19721 "Puddin'" Her Place: Harley Quinn as Joker's Enslaved Lover 199Elizabeth Kusko and Caleb McGee Husmann22 The Stoic Punchline of "One Bad Day" 207Matt Hummel23 The Joke's on You: Brains, Responsibility, and the Myth of Mental Illness Revisited 215Thomas D. Harter24 Joker and the Need for Fathers and Family 225Kody W. Cooper