Conversations with Zizek E-Book

Slavoj Zizek

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: PCVS-Polity Conversations Series
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Seitenzahl: 294

Beschreibung

In this new book, Slavoj Zizek and Glyn Daly engage in a series of entertaining conversations which illustrate the originality of Zizek's thinking on psychoanalysis, philosophy, multiculturalism, popular/cyber culture, totalitarianism, ethics and politics. * * An excellent introduction to one of the most engaging and controversial cultural theorists writing today. * Zizek is a Slovenian sociologist who trained as a Lacanian and uses Lacan to analyse popular culture and politics. * Illustrates the originality of Zizek's thinking on psychoanalysis, philosophy, multi-culturalism, popular/cyber culture, totalitarianism, ethics and politics. * Provides a unique glimpse of Zizek's humour and character and offers new material and fresh perspectives which will be of interest to followers of Zizek's writings.

Leseprobe

ConversationswithŽižek

Slavoj Žižek and Glyn Daly

polity

Copyright © Slavoj Žižek and Glyn Daly 2004

The right of Slavoj Žižek and Glyn Daly to be identified asAuthors of this Work has been asserted in accordance with theUK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2004 by Polity Press in association withBlackwell Publishing Ltd.

Reprinted 2004, 2005, 2008 (twice)

Polity Press

65 Bridge Street

Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Polity Press

350 Main Street

Malden, MA 02148, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-0-7456 2896-7

ISBN: 978-0-7456 2897-4 (pb)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and has been applied for from the Library of Congress.

Typeset in 11 on 13 pt Berling

by SNP Best-set Typesetter Ltd., Hong Kong

Printed and bound in the United States by Odyssey Press Inc.,

Gonic, New Hampshire

For further information on Polity, visit our website:www.polity.co.uk

CONVERSATIONS

Published

Bauman & Tester, Conversations with Zygmunt Bauman

Beck & Willms, Conversations with Ulrich Beck

Castells & Ince, Conversations with Manuel Castells

Giddens & Pierson, Conversations with Anthony Giddens

Žižek & Daly, Conversations with Žižek

Forthcoming

Eagleton & Milne, Conversations with Terry Eagleton

Hall & Schwarz, Conversations with Stuart Hall

Sennett & Klinenberg, Conversations with Richard Sennett

Contents

Introduction: Risking the Impossible

Conversation 1Opening the Space of Philosophy

Conversation 2The Madness of Reason: Encounters of theReal Kind

Conversation 3Subjects of Modernity: Virtuality and theFragility of the Real

Conversation 4Tolerance and the Intolerable: Enjoyment,Ethics and Event

Conversation 5Miracles Do Happen: Globalization(s) and Politics

Bibliography

Index

Introduction: Risking the Impossible

Glyn Daly

An anecdote by Lacan recounts a chance remark made by Freud to Jung. Following an invitation from Clark University, the two psychoanalysts travelled to the United States and upon arrival in New York harbour Freud gestured towards the Statue of Liberty and said, ‘They don't realize that we're bringing them the plague’. In today's world we might say something similar about Žižek. That is to say, in the context of the platitudes and triteness of a predominantly postmodern culture Žižek represents the philosophical equivalent of a virulent plague or perhaps, to update the metaphor, a computer virus whose purpose is to disrupt the comfortable appearances of what might be called the matrix of globalliberal-capitalism. Continuing in a certain Cartesian tradition, what Žižek infects us with is a fundamental doubt about the very presuppositions of our social reality. But this is merely the starting point of a much wider ethico-political engagement with a radical emancipatory universalism; one that is capable of taking on the increasingly prohibitive nature of contemporary capitalism and its corresponding forms of political correctness and ‘multiculturalism’.1

Žižek's work has been at the forefront of philosophical, political and cultural debate for more than a decade. From the theory of ideology to the critique of subjectivity, ethics, globalization, cyberspace, film studies, cognitivism, theology, music and opera, Žižek's influence extends far and wide and his interventions continue to provoke controversy and to transform the way we think about these and other topics. To pick up a text by Žižek is to be confronted with a heady mix of elements: bold propositions, bravura of style and an intellectual audaciousness that does not flinch from moving between the heights of conceptual abstractions and the seemingly base and voluptuary aspects of popular and sensuous life. The latter however is not simply an exercise in cerebral pyrotechnics but aims at something more precise. Indeed, we might characterize Žižek's discourse as an ongoing demonstration of the inextricable connection between what might be called the levels of the divine, or eternal, and our immediate lived realities. From Kant to cunnilingus Žižek seeks to remind us that, in the Hegelian sense, the spirit is always a bone and that we cannot separate the most intimate of physical experiences from their transcendental dimensions.