Combining personal narrative, interviews, and literary analysis, Fool elaborates the potential for fool figures from throughout literary history to reconfigure subject-object relations and point towards new possibilities in creative and critical thought. Drawing on Johanna Skibsrud’s experience in clown classes in France and the US, Fool challenges and extends the correlation Theodor Adorno suggests between thinking and clowning. It considers a diverse range of literary and theoretical sources from Richard Wagner’s Parsifal to Karen Barad’s Meeting the Universe Halfway. The book also refers to a varied cast of literary and historical clowns and fools, including the early Shakespearean actor Richard Tarlton, Alban Berg’s Wozzeck, and Cirque du Soleil’s Shannan Calcutt.
Skibsrud elaborates on the role of the ‘fool’ and ‘foolishness’ in literature, not as an element of a particular work’s content, plot, or style but instead as a creative mode of thought activated through the reading and writing of literary texts. This innovative book charts new ground in literature, philosophy, and performance studies, and is an invaluable resource for specialists in all three fields.
Series Preface
Author's Preface
Chapter 1 - Foolish Objects: Between Public and Private Selves
Chapter 2 - To the Point of Clowning: Going Astray with Theodor Adorno
Chapter 3 - 'Touching the Impossible': A Conversation with Slava Polunin
Chapter 4 - Becoming Clown: A Conversation with David Bridel and Mike Funt
Chapter 5 - Notes from the Theatre: Fragments and Criticisms
Chapter 6 - Trompe l’Oeil: A Brief History
Chapter 7 - Thinking: With David Bridel (October 2021–June 2022)
Two Photographs
Works Cited
Index
Biography
Johanna Skibsrud is Associate Professor at the University of Arizona. She is the Scotiabank Giller Prize-winning author of numerous works of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction, including The Poetic Imperative: A Speculative Aesthetics (2020), Island (2019), and The Nothing That Is: Essays on Art, Literature, and Being (2019).
"Novelist and scholar Johanna Skibsrud boldly explores the place and significance of the Fool in literature, performance and, indeed, theory. From her readings of Adorno and musings on Beckett to brutally serious clown training with Philippe Gaulier, Skibsrud offers insights into ways that embracing the Fool (historical and within) can unleash creative thinking and practice." - Louis Patrick Leroux, Professor and Associate Dean of Research Concordia University; co-author of Contemporary Circus and co-editor of Cirque Global Quebec’s Expanding Circus Boundaries.
"A beautiful account of Skibsrud’s personal journey into the world of clown that documents and interrogates both gentle encounters and harsh realities. Poetically intertwined with critical thought and analysis, Fool is ultimately human, relatable, vulnerable and inspiring." - Paige Allerton, Artistic Director, Manifesto Poetico
