The Laughter of the Oppressed: Ethical and Theological Resistance in Wiesel, Morrison, and Endo

by Jacqueline A. Bussie

Jacqueline Bussie's book tackles the following unanswered What is the theological and ethical significance of the laughter of the oppressed? And what does it mean to laugh at the horrible--to laugh while one suffers? The majority of ethical philosophical theory and western theology (e.g. Augustine, St. John Chrysostom, Oecolampadius, Reinhold Niebuhr) maintains that laughter is nihilistic and irresponsible, especially if occurring within tragic circumstance. However, she argues that the dominant social location of these theologians and theorists has led to a gap in inquiry, to a failure to consider laughter "from below."
For Judeo-Christian theology, The Laughter of the Oppressed explores uncharted terrain. This book broadens the theological lens to examine the multicultural, modern historical fiction of Elie Wiesel, Toni Morrison, and Shusaku Endo as case studies. In these authors' well-respected texts, Gates of the Forest, Beloved, and Silence, we discover the laughter of the Jews during the Holocaust, the laughter of African Americans both slave and free, and the laughter of the persecuted religious minority of Japanese Christians. These texts, in dialogue with voices from within and beyond their traditions, help us construct a theology of laughter. Bussie's book concludes that laughter functions as invaluable ethical and theological mode of resistance in the face of radically negating oppression that has ruptured both language and traditional belief.
The Laughter of the Oppressed not only interrupts the banality of evil and the dualism of faith and doubt, but also deconstructs the dominant consciousness. Such laughter challenges theology to rearticulate the relationships between God and evil, theology and theodicy, theology and language, paradox and faith, tragedy and hope, and oppression and resistance.

Genres: Theory, Religion, Nonfiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published October 15, 2007

Reviews

[Jenny Webb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bussie's readings are sharp, thoughtful, and provocative. Her theological work with laughter as a mode of resistance to fierce and even faith-crushing oppression has applications across literature, philosophy, and theology, particularly in those subfields interested in the relationship between the body and the political, various modes of liberation, and ethics.

[Susannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

My published review of this book is forthcoming at the Practical Matters online journal....will post when the link is live for summary of the argument. My review there was limited to 1000 words, so I didn't have time to explain delicately that I didn't think her reading of Beloved was as good as it was of Silence (and presumably Gates of the Forest which I haven't read). I was holding her use of literature to the criterion of using another's thought while allowing it to remain "on its own terms," which she does so admirably with the Jewish-Christian dialogue part of her book. Her reading of Silence opened the novel up to me, making me think I hadn't gotten it all when I read it, and seemed to 'do justice' to the whole of the book instead of just picking the convenient themes. I didn't feel like she did all that for Beloved, though she did illuminate certain aspects of it for me.

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extremely important book for many reasons, and I highly recommend. No wonder it won the Trinity Prize in 2006. Brilliant and thought-provoking.