Freud's Jewish Jokes: The Case of Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious

Abstract

What is at play in play? What does it mean to take play seriously? Or, in the case of Sigmund Freud, what does it means to take jokes seriously? This article argues that Sarah Kofman's reading of Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, in her 1986 book Pourquoi rit-on? Freud et le mot d'esprit, provides us with one of the most serious and playful responses to these questions. It claims that a kind of Oedipal play leads Kofman to analyse Freud's book, to put it — and therefore him — on the couch.