Abstract
This dissertation argues for a feminist practice of liminal laughter, a bodily laughter that cements a critical engagement. Liminal laughter is formed in the margins, across various disciplines and genres; it is a subversive and parodic laughter that radically challenges the hegemonic narratives of patriarchy and heterosexuality. To contend that feminism benefits from this practice of liminal laughter, I expand on poststructural and phenomenological feminisms and their conceptualizations of the body. Subsequently, using the nineteenth century philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche and his concepts of the transvaluation of all values, overcoming, and affirmation, I create a conceptual frame for thinking liminal laughter. To provide examples for this theory, I look to the Mickee Faust Club, an eclectic theater troupe in Tallahassee, Florida and the works of the theorist and novelist Hélène Cixous. Liminal laughter is a practice that revalues the body’s capacities of sensing feeling to disrupt and destabilize the mind / body, masculine / feminine, natural / unnatural, and subject / other binaries. By doing so, liminal laughter not only displaces the dominant terms, but it is also creates alternative narratives.
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