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 Moran 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