Course Description
The student is currently writing a MA thesis “Grotesque Laughter in William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch,” which incorporates psychoanalytic theory, the aesthetics of the grotesque and philosophies concerning humor. She claims that the grotesque scenes combining horror and laughter are the key elements that compensate for the novel’s obvious lack of conceivable plotline that is central to traditional narratives. Furthermore, She tends to explore the mutual functions of obstructing/exploding temporality in the grotesque portrayals of morphine addiction and the primitive laughter it incites; according to psychoanalyst Rik Loose, addiction can be conceived as a strategy to circumvent the desire of the Other and administrate jouissance directly onto the self. Similarly, according to Bergson, primitive laughter is a turn against civilized society and a regression towards pure nature. Hence, both laughter and addiction threatens the ever-delaying force of semiosis and desire. By tying up these points, the student attempts to explain how Burroughs’ narrative, which is necessarily based on temporality, paradoxically draws its fascination by its disruption of temporality.