Don Quixote, Charlie Hebdo, and the Politics of Laughter
The year 2015 marks the 400th anniversary of the publication of the first comical novel in the Western world, Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote de la Mancha. The first part of the irreverent work, published in Madrid in 1605, introduced the world to the characters of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, and its definitive sequel of 1615 furthered their misbegotten quest to reactivate knight errantry while doubling down on the pranks and misfortunes they suffered at the hands of fellow Spaniards eager for a laugh. It was doubtless the humorous quality of these pranks and misfortunes that
