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Exploring Dark Comedy in Ecological Literature: Echoes of Laughter in the Capitalocene
Author(s): Mohammad Rahmatullah (Author), Tanu Gupta (Author), Nagendra Kumar (Author)
- Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
- Publication Date: October 2, 2025
- Language: English
- Print length: 224 pages
- ISBN-10: 3032017750
- ISBN-13: 9783032017758
Book Description
In this textbook, ‘dark comedy’ is re-imagined as an ecological instrument: a volatile compound of irony, grotesquerie, and mischievous insight that exposes the carbonised scaffolding of late-capitalist life. Rather than sneering at catastrophe, the chapters anatomise the mechanics—defamiliarising punch line, carnival inversion, affective whiplash—by which humour slips past guard-dogs and rouses an anaesthetised public. The horizon against which this inquiry unfolds is the Capitalocene: a name that indicts capitalism, not “Man,” as the principal geological agent of ruin.
Moving from Aristophanes to Atwood, from street theatre to streaming satire, each text shows laughter doing intellectual lifting. In one moment it fractures complacent common sense; in the next it stitches together circuits of feeling in which eco-grief can transmute into civic resolve. Juxtaposed with the authority of tragic form, dark comedy proves the more permeable solvent: it dissolves cultural defences, lets paradox breathe, and leaves readers wondering how ecosystems became punch-lines.
Methodologically the book is multidisciplinary. Literary tangles with environmental philosophy; humour theory quarrels with eco-Marxism; cultural studies supplies the ethnographic grit that keeps abstraction honest. By braiding those strands the argument departs from standard ecocritical curricula, insisting that jokes are not side-shows but catalytic sites where ethics, affect, and political economy collide.
Designed for advanced undergraduates yet hospitable to researchers, the volume refuses the consolations of easy optimism even as it gestures toward actionable hope. Its wager is simple: teach readers to hear the subversive crackle inside dark laughter and they may also learn to re-script the damaged world that provokes it.
Editorial Reviews
From the Back Cover
This textbook reimagines ‘dark comedy’ as an ecological tool—a mix of irony, the grotesque, and sharp insight that reveals the carbon-laden framework of late-capitalist life. Rather than mocking disaster, its chapters dissect how humor—through unexpected punchlines, carnival-like inversions, and emotional twists—bypasses social defenses and awakens a numbed public. The book frames its inquiry within the Capitalocene, highlighting capitalism as the chief force of ecological destruction.
Spanning works from Aristophanes to Atwood, street theatre to streaming satire, it demonstrates how laughter challenges conventional thinking and transforms eco-grief into civic energy. Dark comedy, more adaptable than tragedy, dissolves cultural barriers, welcomes paradox, and prompts readers to question how ecosystems became jokes.
Multidisciplinary in method, the book interweaves literature, environmental philosophy, humor theory, eco-Marxism, and cultural studies. By blending these approaches, it moves beyond standard ecocriticism, treating humor as a vital site where ethics and politics intersect.
Aimed at advanced undergraduates and researchers, the volume rejects false optimism yet gestures toward practical hope, betting that understanding dark laughter’s subversive power can inspire readers to rethink and repair the world.
Mohammad Rahmatullah is Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Northern University Bangladesh.
Tanu Gupta is Professor and Head in the Department of English and Foreign Languages at Central University of Haryana, Mahendergarh.
Nagendra Kumar is Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee
About the Author
Tanu Gupta is Professor and Head in the Department of English and Foreign Languages at Central University of Haryana, Mahendergarh.
Nagendra Kumar is Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee
