MEDUSA:HELENE CIXOUS AND THE WRITING OF LAUGHTER.

Should an anti-administrative consciousness extend to a discourse (a writing) of laughter? This paper plays with the possibility of this discourse in order to point to debilitating constraints in traditional PA. thinking. Join me and imagine a PA. discourse of laughter that is somatic in origin, and that.focuses on the "funny peculiar," which in the PA. case is understood to be socially constructed elements that are privileged in being misconceived as natural entities in any and all PA. discourses. The paper draws on Helene Cixous' "The Laugh of the Medusa" and Cixous' discussions of feminine writing and the burdens of imposed meanings. It imagines that the use of a libidinal discourse of laughter is to liberate ourselves from the distortions of our particular disciplinary discourse. It gives macro examples of political and economic myth-like stories that have become inscribed on our bodies and that make up our "governing" political and economic discourses. Using a term discussed by Milan Kundera, I suggest that a value lies in bringing us closer in touch with traditional PA.'s "litost." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]