Posthumorism: The Modernist Affect of Laughter.

Frances McDonald's book, "Posthumorism: The Modernist Affect of Laughter," challenges the premise of humor studies by exploring posthumorist laughter, which she argues lies outside the field. McDonald draws on affect studies to analyze various texts, including Nathanael West's "The Day of the Locust" and Hélène Cixous' "The Book of Promethea," to demonstrate how writers use language to make laughter a central focus. She also incorporates philosophical concepts from Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari to present posthumorist laughter as a disruptive force that goes beyond individual emotions and traditional notions of humor. While McDonald's book has been criticized for its totalizing rhetoric and overlooking the diversity of modernist art, it offers a thought-provoking critique of humor studies and opens up new possibilities for understanding laughter. [Extracted from the article]