Zizek: A Readers Guide

Slavoj ?i?ek is widely regarded as the most significant andprovocative thinker of our age. He integrates concepts from thepsychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan with Hegel′s dialecticalmethod in philosophy, for a radically new vision of human natureand human society. ?i?ek has written–with humor, lucidity, andextraordinary erudition–on the philosophical problem of identity,ontology, globalization, postmodernism, political philosophy,literature, film, ecology, religion, the French Revolution, Lenin,the philosophy of language, and the philosophy of mind.

?i?ek: A Reader′s Guide situates ?i?ek′s wide–rangingwork in the broader context of continental philosophy, engages itsprecedents, and provides an overview of its main preoccupations,providing a backstory for both the philosopher and the generalreader.

Moving deftly through the work of G.W.F. Hegel, F.W.J.Schelling, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Martin Heidegger, JacquesDerrida, Louis Althusser, and Alain Badiou, in addition to Lacan,this reader′s guide offers a comprehensive overview of Slavoj?i?ek′s thought.

Kelsey Wood has taught philosophy at the College of theHoly Cross, at Boston University, and at the Pennsylvania StateUniversity. He is the author of Troubling Play:  Meaningand Entity in Plato′s Parmenides (2005), and Plato′s LaterDialectic and Continental Philosophy (forthcoming).

Epigraphs ix

Acknowledgments x

1 Introduction 1

2 The Sublime Object of Ideology 46

3 For They Know Not What They Do: Enjoyment as a PoliticalFactor 55

4 Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan throughPopular Culture 66

5 Enjoy Your Symptom! Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out75

6 Tarrying with the Negative: Kant, Hegel, and the Critiqueof Ideology 94

7 The Metastases of Enjoyment: On Women and Causality108

8 The Indivisible Remainder: On Schelling and RelatedMatters 115

9 The Plague of Fantasies 125

10 The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of PoliticalOntology 136

11 The Art of the Ridiculous Sublime: On David Lynch sLost Highway 146

12 The Fragile Absolute: or, Why is the Christian LegacyWorth Fighting For? 155

13 On Belief 163

14 The Fright of Real Tears: Krzysztof Kies´lowskibetween Theory and Post–Theory 171

15 Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism? Five Interventions inthe (Mis)use of a Notion 180

16 Welcome to the Desert of the Real 193

17 The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core ofChristianity 201

18 Organs without Bodies: On Deleuze and Consequences212

19 Iraq: The Borrowed Kettle 220

20 How to Read Lacan 227

21 The Parallax View 237

22 In Defense of Lost Causes 249

23 Violence 257

24 First as Tragedy, then as Farce 267

25 Living in the End Times 278

26 Conclusion 295

Further Reading 315

Index 322

Kelsey Wood has taught philosophy at the College of the HolyCross, at Boston University, and at the Pennsylvania StateUniversity. He is the author of T roubling Play: Meaning and Entity in Plato′s Parmenides (2005), and Plato′sLater Dialectic and Continental Philosophy (forthcoming).