Laughter shakes us out of our deadness. An outburst of spontaneous laughter is an eruption from the unconscious that, like political resistance, poetry, or self-revelation, expresses a provocative, impish drive to burst free from external constraints. Taking laughter's revelatory capacity as a starting point, and rooted in Nuar Alsadir's experience as a poet and psychoanalyst, Animal Joy seeks to recover the sensation of feeling alive and embodied.Writing in a poetic, asso...

A Time Must-Read Book of 2022A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2022Aster(ix) Journal's 12 Best Nonfiction Books of 2022An invigorating, continuously surprising book about the serious nature of laughter.Laughter shakes us out of our deadness. An outburst of spontaneous laughter is an eruption from the unconscious that, like political resistance, poet...

This publication is being released to coincide with the retrospective of the British-Japanese artist Simon Fujiwara at Mudam Luxembourg. It brings together a range of authors who explore Fujiwara's central themes and methods from diverse perspectives. The essays examine the structures underlying his works through the lens of topics such as psychoanalysis, iconography, branding, and marketing. In doing so, they also reflect on the conditions of artistic life and work in an increasingly medi...