Description: Maggie Hennefeld reveals the forgotten histories of "hysterical laughter," exploring how women's amusement has been theorized and demonized, suppressed and exploited.
Review Quotes: A tour de force of feminist historiography through cinema's early archive of hysterical laughter! In a time of perpetual carnival, what promise can laughter still hold? Moving us beyond both capitalist gimmick and revolutionary excess, Hennefeld carefully excavates the affective cluster held in tension by a burst of laughter on the brink of death.--Anca Parvulescu, author of Laughter: Notes on a Passion