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03473aam a2200373 i 4500 001 3464D2CAE67F11EE94C7D61345ECA4DB 003 SILO 005 20240320010038 008 231120t20242024nyua b 001 0 eng 010 $a 2023043315 020 $a 0231213298 020 $a 9780231213295 020 $a 023121328X 020 $a 9780231213288 035 $a (OCoLC)1411306872 040 $a DLC $b eng $e rda $c DLC $d NUI $d SILO 042 $a pcc 043 $a n-us--- 050 00 $a PN1995.9.L39 $b H46 2024 100 1 $a Hennefeld, Maggie, $d 1984- $e author. 245 10 $a Death by laughter : $b female hysteria and early cinema / $c Maggie Hennefeld. 264 1 $a New York : $b Columbia University Press, $c [2024] 300 $a xiii, 352 pages : $b illustrations ; $c 24 cm 520 $a "Death by Laughter reveals the untold history of female "hysterical laughter" (as both a light-hearted colloquialism and as a mirthless psychiatric symptom) from the mid-19th century through the rise of early cinema. Maggie Hennefeld argues that cinema made it possible for women to laugh hysterically as never before, but with irreversible social and political consequences. Prior to the end of the nineteenth century, "hysterical laughter" was the last thing you would ever want to experience with your body. It was primarily something that afflicted emotional, ambitious, and/or frustrated women on the cusp of a nervous breakdown. Above all, it arose from the sudden, simultaneous eruption of unresolvable mixed feelings. But all that began to change around the turn of the century when, at last, hysterical laughter was let loose upon the masses. Female enjoyment quickly became a gold standard for commercial profitability amid the popular explosion of cinematic modernity. At the same time, as always, there was intense cultural backlash and moral panic in response to the voluble escalation of women's euphoric sensation. Hennefeld traces the social politics of female enjoyment from the heyday of nineteenth-century sentimentalism to the collective carnival of early film spectatorship. Drawing on film historiography, critical comedy studies, affect theory, psychoanalysis, Hennefeld considers a wide range of subjects from obituaries of women "killed by a joke," to theories and performances of female hysteria, to the institutional deployment of movies as a recreational cure for madness"--Provided by publisher. 504 $a Includes bibliographical references and index. 505 0 $a Hysterical laughter on the brink of enjoyment -- Female death by laughter (beyond enjoyment) -- An all too brief history of laughter and death -- Gaslighting the libido : feminist politics of madness, laughter, and power -- Laughter : the forgotten symptom -- Mass hysteria, collective laughter, and affective contagion -- Laughter unleashed : hysterical women at the movies -- The visual cure? Moving pictures as neurotic trigger and therapeutic instrument -- From mouth to screen : laughing heads in the history of film -- Conclusion: Laughter, hysteria, power : then and now. 650 0 $a Laughter in motion pictures. 650 0 $a Hysteria in motion pictures. 650 0 $a Women in motion pictures. 650 0 $a Comedy films $z United States $x History and criticism. 650 0 $a Motion pictures $z United States $x History $y 20th century. 941 $a 1 952 $l OVUX522 $d 20240320010754.0 956 $a http://locator.silo.lib.ia.us/search.cgi?index_0=id&term_0=3464D2CAE67F11EE94C7D61345ECA4DBInitiate Another SILO Locator Search