@inbook{b2438b0a130b4228bb2862632139f5e2,
title = "The World as Farce",
abstract = "This chapter proposes an interdisciplinary introduction to the notion of the political world as farce. More exactly, it advances the argument that, despite experiencing the world as a joke of cosmic proportions, an individual can still create meaning even in the most meaningless conditions (concentration camps, totalitarian societies and the like). The paper traces the presence of the topic in Dostoyevsky{\textquoteright}s The Brothers Karamazov and Primo Levi{\textquoteright}s Se questo {\`e} un uomo and discusses the particular case of Milan Kundera, for whom the historical world appears as nothing but a cruel joke.",
keywords = "Farce, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, God, Milan Kundera, Nihilism, Primo Levi, Simon Critchley",
author = "Costica Bradatan",
note = "Funding Information: Under the title {\textquoteleft}To die laughing,{\textquoteright} a different, longer version of this chapter has been published in a special issue of the journal East-European Politics & Societies dedicated to {\textquoteleft}totalitarian laughter{\textquoteright} and guest-edited by Serguei Oushakine. I researched and wrote this chapter while holding a Solmsen Fellowship at the University of Wisconsin{\textquoteright}s Institute for Research in the Humanities. I am grateful to the Institute and in particular to its director, Professor Susan Stanford Friedman, for their very generous support. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2015, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.",
year = "2015",
doi = "10.1007/978-94-017-9448-0_9",
language = "English",
series = "Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures",
publisher = "Springer Science and Business Media B.V.",
pages = "127--141",
booktitle = "Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures",
}