Introduction / Mark T. Conard -- The Coen Brand of Comedy and Tragedy. Raising Arizona as an American Comedy / Richard Gilmore -- The Human Comedy Perpetuates Itself: Nihilism and Comedy in Coen Neo-Noir / Thomas S. Hibbs -- Philosophies of Comedy in O Brother, Where Art Thou? / Douglas McFarland -- No Country for Old Men: the Coens' Tragic Western / Richard Gilmore -- Deceit, Desire, and Dark Comedy: Postmodern Dead Ends in Blood Simple / Alan Woolfolk -- Ethics: Shame, Justice, and Virtue. "And It's Such a Beautiful Day!": Shame and Fargo / Rebecca Hanrahan and David Stearns -- Justice, Power, and Love: The Political Philosophy of Intolerable Cruelty / Shai Biderman and William J. Devlin -- Ethics, Heart, and Violence in Miller's Crossing / Bradley L. Herling -- "Takin' 'er Easy for All Us Sinners": Laziness as a Virtue in The Big Lebowski / Matthew K. Douglass and Jerry L. Walls -- No country for old men as moral philosophy / Douglas McFarland -- Postmodernity, Interpretation, and the Construction of History. Heidegger and the Problem of Interpretation in Barton Fink / Mark T. Conard -- The Past Is Now: History and The Hudsucker Proxy / Paul Coughlin -- "A Homespun Murder Story": Film Noir and the Problem of Modernity in Fargo / Jerold J. Abrams -- Existentialism, Alienation, and Despair. "What Kind of Man Are You?" The Coen Brothers and Existentialist Role Playing / Richard Gaughran -- Being the Barber: Kierkegaardian Despair in The Man Who Wasn't There / Karen D. Hoffman -- Thinking beyond the Failed Community: Blood Simple and The Man Who Wasn't There / R. Barton Palmer -- God, Man, and Nature -- How Job begat Larry: the Present Situation in A Serious Man / K. L. Evans -- "A Lead Ball of Justice": The Logic of Retribution and the Ethics of Instruction in True Grit / David LaRocca.
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