Zizek, Slavoj

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little-a-ness
I've never met a man who knew so much about nothing
Fall into the Gap
Provocative yet awkwardly unsatisfying
Ride the Cyclone with a Bag on Your Head

The Parallax View (Short Circuits)
Slavoj Zizek
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0262240513

Book Description

The Parallax View is Slavoj Zizek's most substantial theoretical work to appear in many years; Zizek himself describes it as his magnum opus. Parallax can be defined as the apparent displacement of an object, caused by a change in observational position. Zizek is interested in the "parallax gap" separating two points between which no synthesis or mediation is possible, linked by an "impossible short circuit" of levels that can never meet. From this consideration of parallax, Zizek begins a rehabilitation of dialectical materialism.

Modes of parallax can be seen in different domains of today's theory, from the wave-particle duality in quantum physics to the parallax of the unconscious in Freudian psychoanalysis between interpretations of the formation of the unconscious and theories of drives. In The Parallax View, Zizek, with his usual astonishing erudition, focuses on three main modes of parallax: the ontological difference, the ultimate parallax that conditions our very access to reality; the scientific parallax, the irreducible gap between the phenomenal experience of reality and its scientific explanation, which reaches its apogee in today's brain sciences (according to which "nobody is home" in the skull, just stacks of brain meat--a condition Zizek calls "the unbearable lightness of being no one"); and the political parallax, the social antagonism that allows for no common ground. Between his discussions of these three modes, Zizek offers interludes that deal with more specific topics--including an ethical act in a novel by Henry James and anti-anti-Semitism.

The Parallax View not only expands Zizek's Lacanian-Hegelian approach to new domains (notably cognitive brain sciences) but also provides the systematic exposition of the conceptual framework that underlies his entire work. Philosophical and theological analysis, detailed readings of literature, cinema, and music coexist with lively anecdotes and obscene jokes.

Customer Reviews:

little-a-ness.......2007-05-31

"The clue to this book is in the little-a-ness: the simulacrum of the [...] is PARALLAX , the vernacular translation of the text itself being DOUBLE VISION. Well, fair enough, after a whole magnum of opus anyone's focus would be a little ,er, shall we say inconsequential."

Nice Cover!

There are some other things I might say about this book but Zizek, along with Bartleby, would probably prefer not.

Instead let me use my amazon review as an open letter to the Man. Listen man, you inspired a lot of people, showed them how to delegitimate the text of the default culture, took the argument forward. But now what you doing? This aint dialectics man. Maybe you are on the wrong drug, try some mellow green. It's not all about twos and ones it's about ONE NO ( not a dithering decline) and MANY YESES ( affirming transcendent autopeoses).

Use your head not your eyes and your appetite, come back and join the human race in our struggle to save ourselves and our world. Another World is Possible!

One Earth One Love One Struggle

I've never met a man who knew so much about nothing.......2006-11-14

Any supposed shortcomings or uneven passages in this brilliant book are more than made up for by the sustained, detailed analyses of Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and recent developments in brain and cognitive science. What do these things have to do with the phenomenon of parallax? Everything.

In other respects, this book covers familiar pop-cultural ground --- Lynch, cartoons, star wars episodes 1-3, etc --- but it does so with renewed vigor and further insights. I'm thinking particularly of the chapter entitled "a boy meets a lady." This chapter contains probably the most perverse --- and therefore most accurate --- interpretation of Hegel's "absolute knowledge" I have ever heard. Please read, you like.

As to the skepticism my fellow reviewers express over Zizek's appropriation of Bartleby, all I can say is "not the letter but the spirit." He is clearly NOT suggesting that you never leave your workplace and try to subsist only on pine nuts until the authorities cart you away. He's interested in the negativity of Bartleby's gesture/motto as a double retort to both the frenetic activity that the capitalist epoch compells in its subjects and to the obsessive half-measures of the "resistance" movements that are the inherent supplement of global capital.

What is to be done in 2k6? The answer is seinfeldian: "everybody's doing something; we'll do nothing." What does this mean in real terms? Take voting in America for instance, as Zizek pointed out years ago, the choice for us is between coke and diet coke. Sure diet coke won't start a war in Iraq; it's healthier than that. It'll will wage an economic one instead, i.e. nafta, ftaa, etc. As Kerry seemed to always be implying in his election bid: I can make this a even BETTER empire. SO what is the way out of this forced/false choice? DON'T VOTE. Take America's already existing, statistical apathy (50% voter turn out) and turn it into a statistical boycott (somewhere near the mid-30s in percentile). This would make our elections invalid according to international election authorities insofar as the result cannot be construed as the will of the majority of the people. Does that bear legally on our government? Of course not, but it would be a hell of a lot more interesting than voting democrat and republican for another 150 years.

So remember, tell the green party it needs to commit suicide by advocating that no one vote. It's time to subtract logical positivism from out poltical thinking. And it's time to have Zizek as a guest on The Daily Show.

Fall into the Gap.......2006-08-24

_The Parallax View_, which the ever-prolific Slavoj Zizek has declared the "magnum opus" of his substantial _oeuvre_, is a generally rewarding, if uneven, work.

I took from it this: every posited antinomy, opposition or other binarism conceals in itself a more pluriform nature, the terms themselves irreducible to themselves (a challenge to Western thoughts principle of identity: an entity is identical to itself[?]), leaving an irreducible bare difference(the old Derridean stand-by) that remains largely unaccountable but ontologically substantial nonetheless -- a locus of "the Real." Ultimately uncognizable, this difference, which for Zizek is the Lacanian "_object petit a_," opens a parallax gap wherein this difference, though uncognizable, nevertheless serves as a common referent among the actors of any ideological disagreement.

I found this a compelling thesis, and Zizek, though often given to an over-reliance on rhetorical questions, ellipses, and anacoluthon (this latter tendency perhaps inspired by St. Paul, himself an inveterate employer of anacoluthon, whom Z. frequently discusses in the early portions of _TPV_), is in the main persuasive. (I have to balk, however, at Z.'s frequent recourse to pop-cultural examples -- are overwrought, pandering summer blockbusters like _The Matrix_ and _The Revenge of the Sith_ really so fraught with important theoretical implications?) The real shortcoming of _TPV_, as I see it, comes in the final pages, wherein Z., having explicated his theory, waxes prescriptive, encouraging his readers to embody the "Bartleby-parallax" in order to avoid being caught up in the Hegelian pseudo-negations of counterhegemonic practices. We must be as resistant to the latter in our "preferring-not-to's" as to the hegemonic ills the latter are intended to redress -- "I prefer not to eat factory-farmed, adulterated, GM food; I prefer not to purchase food from an organic farming co-op." Because not to do so and to remain, rather, in the old dialectic of resorting to alternatives to dismaying hegemony, is to remain ensnared in the Foucauldian circuits of power that result in the eternal recursion and reinscription of extant relations. The parallactic Bartleby disrupts the workings of ideological apparatuses by cultivating an inner disposition of refusal until, according to Z., there opens up possibilities that are not determined by the dialectic.

This is precisely where Z. lost me. I recall Bartleby's fate: blind, starving, homeless, jailed ... eventually dead. And, for all of Z.'s hostility to what he calls "postmodern techno-gnosticism," Bartleby seem an odd exemplar, given the fact that Herman Melville, Bartleby's creator, often mused upon the tenets of Gnosticism (He composed a poem on gnosticism, and _The Confidence Man_, his last published novel, arguably lends itself to a gnostic reading). Z.'s recommendation here seems too close to Baudrillard's injunction to "be silent" in the face of popular media -- essentially to choose a mode of resistance likely futile, all while consoling oneself that futility is inevitable, until from the murky parallax gap of the Real messianically springs, like Athena from the head of Zeus, the possibility of truly efficacious revolution.

Provocative yet awkwardly unsatisfying.......2006-04-10

(Again, I feel guilty for such a short review, but aside from lack of time, who am I to say "what the text is saying"?)

Zizek refers to this work as his magnum opus. This is a curious remark for a few reasons. For one, the book does not come across as "climactic"; neither does one envisage a future decline in either productivity or quality in Zizek's writings. Just based on memory, this book is Zizek's longest and most sustained single engagement, but that fact in itself is not particularly relevant. It is undeniably one of Zizek's better books, but not an absolutely singular occurrence in his oevure (such an occurrence would have to be phenomenal).

Needless to say, the reader needs to come to this work with a background in Hegel and Lacan (as well as others, but these are the central presupposed figures). Zizek has been criticized for merely "regurgitating" Lacan or "applying" Lacanian ideas to various topics. This criticism is a little unfair, but it's also true that in this particular work, Zizek tends to string together a series of readings of various texts (which of course includes films, books, thinkers, novels, poems, and even Schumann's Humoresque). Zizek is usually insightful in his readings, even if he occasionally takes tendentious liberties and occasionally falls into obscurity; he is always provocative, however, even if one disagrees with his readings. Some reviews have faulted Zizek for making "too many" references. Although Zizek occasionally cites an obscure author (better known to Europeans than Americans), most of Zizek's texts are familiar to anyone reasonably versed enough in academic and popular culture at least to be able to get the point of a reading even if one has never seen Chaplin's City Lights. Zizek never *simply* refers to something by saying something exasperating (like some other academics) like "Adorno makes the point more emphatically when he claims, with Ibsen, that forms of moral purity are often nourished by a 'hidden egoism.'" At least Zizek explains the comparison or point he is trying to get across. In any event, Zizek writes in a way that demands breadth of knowledge from his readers, but in a way that is not merely an exercise in virtuosity.

On the other hand, one problem with this text is that the argument tends to get lost by virtue of the fact that Zizek moves from the reading of one text to another text such that it feels like all he is doing is either giving examples or arguing by a series of analogies. While there is nothing inherently wrong with analogical thinking, the problem is that it can be easy to miss the point. Zizek is most certainly not just giving examples, but the narrative tends to get buried under the readings.

These readings, however, traverse the gambit from the usual Kant (including an ingenious reading of his ethics), Hegel, Nietzsche, Marx, and Lacan to Heidegger, Kafka, Mozart, Kierkegaard (problematic but interesting), Bernard Williams, Henry James, Wordsworth, Damasio, and Badiou (his most recent interlocutor).

The central idea is, of course, that of parallax, but it is easy to miss the point here. Zizek is *not* primarily interested in the perspectival aspect of parallax. While this feature of parallax often emerges in this discussions throughout the book (for example, he speaks of the political parallax in this way: "all [that] is needed is a slight shift in our perspective, and all the activity of "resistance," of bombarding those in power with impossible "subversive" (ecological, feminist, antiracist, anti-globalist...) demands, looks like an internal process of feeding the machine of power, providing the material to keep it in motion"), the "shift in perspective" is not the main point.

The main point is that when we take this shift in perspective, what becomes evident is the *parallax gap*, which is irreducible to either one of the two perspectives in parallax or even to perspective itself. The gap is the mark of the *noncoincidence of the One itself*. Here Zizek enters into the ontological debate between Deleuze and Badiou by proclaiming that "the pure difference is itself an object. Another name for the parallax gap is therefore minimal difference, a "pure" difference which cannot be grounded in positive substantial properties". (And, of course, we must turn to Lacan for the full importance of this: 'L'objet petit a' is the pure parallax object.)

It is this absence in the center of parallax that is key to Zizek's so-called "rehabilitation of dialectical materialism". The parallax is the key to his "materialist theology" in chapter two, but the relationship of parallax to (Hegelian) dialectics is precise: the parallax does not allow for synthesis to occur. In fact, it seems like Zizek has either given up on the very idea of synthesis or is arguing that synthesis entirely misses the point.

The encounter with Hegel thus continues Zizek's prior work, and he (more or less) explicitly updates his arguments in The Sublime Object of Ideology and The Ticklist Subject. Continuities, however, are apparent from other works such as Tarrying With the Negative (which is among my own favorites of his works and probably his most "theoretical" work despite the claims of The Parallax Gap).

What I personally found the most interesting in this book is the idea of pure ontological difference in itself--i.e., the very idea of parallax which is rather underdeveloped in the work. (Perhaps Zizek is simply relying on Badiou's kind of ontology, but this itself is not unproblematic.) Zizek devotes only a few pages in the first chapter to it before mobilizing the concept of the parallax in his readings of ontology, epistemology, and politics. (Of the three, the second seemed the weakest and Zizek's argument about the irreducibility of brain processes and conscious experiences added little to current debates in the philosophy of mind, even if the text was illuminating in some parts. In this light, chapter three was more interesting than chapter four, even though it was the latter on which Zizek placed the most argumentative emphasis.) Hence my first reason for this rating: the most interesting idea of this book from a philosophical point of view was underdeveloped before it was deployed (even if the critical exercises were stimulating). (Or, another way of saying this is that Zizek is at work in this book as a critic and not a philosopher.)

The other main reason for my rating is the surprising number of typographical errors throughout the book. These include misspellings, missing words (such as the one I added in brackets in the quotation above), some formatting errors, and so on. Some sources are also cited as "unpublished" or "forthcoming" which are indeed published (one such work, for example, was published in 2005, which should have been enough time for the printing of The Parallax View).

I used the word "provocative" several times in this review, and I did so consciously: it seems the best adjective to describe this work as a whole. The work "calls forth" insights in the reader in just about every page, even if they are not the insights Zizek is communicating. There are moments when obscurity muffles this call, but on the whole it is not a waste of time for anyone who thinks Zizek is on to something (on the other hand, if you don't think that, this work will not convince you otherwise).

Ride the Cyclone with a Bag on Your Head.......2006-03-29

For some overeducated in philosophy, like myself, particularly from the left (which I am not) Zizek is pure pleasure. It is inconceivable that Zizek's readers get all of his references, explicit or implicit, but that is part of the experience. And reading Zizek is an experience: his primary point is that human beings, try they may, cannot fully understand the world in an intellectual sense. You either get it or you don't, and either way, you won't get it all, but hopefully you'll get just enough to enjoy the first drop that leaves you wanting more.

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The Unconscious Un-idea
meat lake

How to Read Lacan (How to Read)
Slavoj Zizek
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0393329550

Book Description

The How to Read series provides a context and an explanation that will facilitate and enrich your understanding of texts vital to the canon. These books use excerpts from the major texts to explain essential topics, such as Jacques Lacan's core ideas about enjoyment, which re-created our concept of psychoanalysis.

Customer Reviews:

The Unconscious Un-idea.......2007-02-06

As an historian of ideas I have sought a methodology beneath and beyond ideational analysis, identifying the presuppositions of our ideas. It was not until reading a review of several books by Slavoj Zizek several months ago that I begin to realize that this task is the life work of Jacques Lacan (1901-81).

Zizek's HOW TO READ LACAN is an insightful introduction to realities that escape our conscious awareness, resting deep beneath geologic layers of symbolic pretensions. With a double doctorate in both philosophy and pyschoanalysis, Zizek is especially qualified to introduce us to Lacan's work, arguably the most renowned psychoanalyst since Sigmund Freud.

Not sharing Zizek's expertise in popular culture, this reviewer is not qualified to give HOW TO READ LACAN five stars. And yet, while enabling us to probe more deeply the microscopic dimensions of our daily lives, Zizek's reading of Lacan also empowers us to understand and stand under the macroscopic dimensions of geopolitics on the fragile planet that is our home.

An instance of this reading is Zizek's interpretation of Donald Rumsfeld's March 2003 rendition of 1) known knowns, 2) known unknowns and 3) unknown unknowns. Zizek continutes that what Rumsfeld "forgot to add was the crucial fourth term: the 'unknown knowns,' things we don't know that we know -- which is precisely the Freudian unconscious, the 'knowledge that doesn't know itself,' as Lacan use to say, the core of which is fantasy." These 'unknown knowns,' Zizek continues, are "the disavowed beliefs and suppositions we are not even aware of adhering to ourselves, but which nonetheless determine our acts and feelings."

meat lake.......2007-01-30

Zizek admits in the introduction that he brings both arguments and material from his other published works to this How to Read manual. As a result, readers of Zizek will recognize the echoes of some jokes, lists and paragraphs. The limit of Zizek's sustained argumentation reaches about three pages. Each of the seven chapters will have a title, three or four pages will directly address that chapter's title and then fourteen or so pages will rehearse and mull topics of tangential relation. More of these topics of tangential relation are political, cultural, and philosophical rather than specifically Lacanian. Zizek sees Lacan as a tool for reading and interpreting, whose writings compel more ethical considerations than anything else. Each paragraph of Lacan that Zizek discusses proves its worth for its moment but makes little claim for its systematic application or perennial value. The attention of Lacan seems only slightly more mercurial than Zizek's. I find much of Zizek's discussion thought-provoking, clever, and engaging. I feel there is more Zizek than Lacan here, and I love reading Lacan. The list of materials for further reading is refined and helpful. Overall, this book smiles as it serves its tour of duty.

Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture (October Books)

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Lacanian heresy inside! Beware of being tainted!
Perfect - if that's what you want.
This book is great; those below who don't like it are clowns
Titling awry
Looking Awry This Book

Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture (October Books)
Slavoj Zizek
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Lacanian Subject

ASIN: 026274015X

Book Description

Slavoj Zizek, a leading intellectual in the new social movements in Eastern Europe, provides a virtuoso reading of the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan through the works of contemporary popular culture, from horror fiction and detective thrillers to popular romances and Hitchcock films.

Slavoj Zizek is a Researcher in the Institute of Sociology at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. He ran as a proreform candidate for the presidency of the republic of Slovenia, then part of Yugoslavia, in 1990.

Customer Reviews:

Lacanian heresy inside! Beware of being tainted!.......2004-10-05

I am struck by the negative reviews that caution readers: "Zizek is not an orthodox Lacanian! Read him only if you have already understood Lacan!" This is, of course, the typically cultish--really Catholic--approach to Lacan that treats him as a holy text, pre-supposes a series of high priests who have been properly anoited and through whom one must receive the officially sanctioned interpretation. I don't read Zizek for Lacan--I read him for Zizek, and I encourage others to do likewise. *Looking Awry* and *Enjoy Your Symptom* are prehaps the easiest approaches to Zizek and his brand of cultural criticism, as they rely almost entirely on popular culture, especially film. Zizek's perverse (and often dirty) sense of humor and tendency to read against the grain at all costs are apparent on nearly every page, which makes this a very engaging read, indeed. Intellectually, there are some problems with his approach, of course--but Zizek's voice is such a refreshing change of pace, and his constant turn to a reading that you thought was impossible (but turns out to be preversely appealing) makes them all worthwhile.

Perfect - if that's what you want........2004-05-15

That's what I wanted, at least: An illustration of the key Lacanian concepts. What Zizek'bokk gives you, in fact, is the key to reading Lacan.

Lacan's seminar is an unreadable text - if that's your first/second/third etc. time. Lacan, you see, does not make conclusions. To illustrate that:
- You are writing a paper on, let's say, "Gaze". You would like to know what's Lacan's take on gaze. You open "On Gaze as Object a" chapter from "Four Fundamentals".
- you read a paragraph. You do not quite understand what you have read.
- you read the following paragraph. Now, understanding this one is even more difficult, because Lacan is assuming that you have fully understood the previous one. Ok, third paragragh ... Should I continue?
- You either think that this book is non-sense or that you are stupid. Both conclusions are wrong.

As soon as you get the background - Lacan's non-sense makes perfect sense. Zizek give this background in a highly entertaining manner (his writing is a jewel - keeps you thinking "If only I could write like that!"). I am currently doing a PhD in literature, and I have to go through plenty of academic rubbish - dry and actually, useless critical books, that make use of Lacan, Foucault and others to get published and never be read. Zizec is a breath of fresh air.

Please believe me - do not give up on Lacan, do not call him bad names, (like "idiotic nonsense, nobody ever understood him, they were all pretending to understand him because they were afraid to look stupid in the 60s") - before you read Zizec.

This book is great; those below who don't like it are clowns.......2002-09-22

Jacques Lacan's theories are completely, utterly undecipherable. The only way to begin to understand the fundamentals of psychoanalytic theory is to read somebody else writing on Lacan. And thank God Zizek does that for us. To understand Lacan, I've always had to turn to film theory critism--Laura Mulvey--but none of that ever goes beyond theories of the gaze, neglecting to dispell the mystery around some of the most basic concepts of Lacan. Zizek rolls through these various terms and ideas, always providing an exemplification of the idea in popular culture, usually in Hitchcock or within Sci-Fi genres, and then a clear-to-understand definition. So if you're confused as to what desire, drive, lack, objet a, other, Other, the Real, or the Thing are in terms of Lacanian jargon, this might be your book.

Titling awry.......2001-07-08

This book is very interesting but I think it would have been better to call it "An Introduction to Popular Culture trhough Jaques Lacan". This would be a proper title because Zizek dedicates more space to tell us what some products of popular culture are about (i.e. Stephen King's novel "Pet Sematary"; Robert Sheckley's short story "The Store of the Worlds") than to explain, or even outline, the theories of Jaques Lacan. This in itself is not a critique, I just want to say that the title can be misleading. You will not find here an explanation or an introduction to Lacan, but rather a Lacanian reading or interpretation of some products of popular culture (novels, short stories and films.) If you are looking for an easy or brief rendering of Lacan, this book will not be of much help. Moreover, I would say that the readers who will profit the most are those who are already familiar with, or at least know something about, Lacanian thought. This said, I think that Zizek's Lacanian reading of popular works is very good in some cases, and somewhat poor in others. For example, he recalls the novel "Pet Sematary" but he explains almost nothing about it. The good cases, however, make it worth the effort to read the book (Zizek's writing is complicated, but so is Lacan's), and even if you do not agree with some of his points, they are still useful to encourage thought and discussion. If you are interested in the study of popular culture, the interpretation of film and literature, or in the application of Lacanian theory to social analysis, this book will certainly be of use.

Looking Awry This Book.......2000-06-01

This book consists of three parts each of which treats so wide range of topics that there seems to be no logical consistency except Lacanian theory. In the first part, Zizek applys Lacanian theory on reality to various topics such as Zenofs paradox, Shakespearefs gHamleth, Stephen Kingfs gPet Semataryh, and Steven Spielbergfs gEmpire of the Sunh. Then, the second part focuses on Hitchcockfs works and the third part discusses gFantasy, Bureaucracy, Democracyh, however, both parts treat various works in popular culture, too. Actually, Zizek treats Lacanian theory on reality in the first part, on psychoanalysis in the second part, and on gthe Imaginary, the Symbolic, and the Realh in the third part, and the third part arranges the preceding parts. But I feel that this book is about how to analyze popular culture rather than about Lacan. As an introduction to Jacques Lacan, I think this book is too difficult. However, this bookfs style which does not have a logical consistency like an ordinary thesis might be more easy to know Lacanian theory than compactly explaining book with many diagrams.

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leads you backstage into places opera don't know
Opera on the Couch

Opera's Second Death
Slavoj Zizek
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0415930170

Book Description

Operas are about the meaning of love and life, and also very much about the meaning of death. Opera as a form, however, might even be dead itself. The last great operas are said to be those written around 1900.
But, the psychoanalytic critic and philosopher Slavoj Zizek is quick to point out, 1900 is also the year in which Freud 'invents' psychoanalysis. Can this be a coincidence? Opera's Second Death is a passionate exploration of opera---the genre, its masterpieces, and the nature of death. Using a dazzling array of tools, Slavoj Zizek and coauthor Mladen Dolar explore the strange compulsions that overpower characters in Mozart and Wagner, as well as our own desires to die and to go to the opera.
Mozart's understanding of psychoanalysis and Wagner's sense of humor are but two of the many surprises in Zizek and Dolar's operatic tour de force. Opera's Second Death is an extended aria on a subject that is far from dead.

Customer Reviews:

leads you backstage into places opera don't know.......2005-05-01

Opera is perhaps the most perfect subject for Zizek's gaze with Hegelian negations and Absolutes Lacan's "object petit a,"Four Discourses" in the Master Signifier, the divided self,desire, don't be scared away for the cloistered world of opera can use such insights to help clarify its own anxieties self-indulgences and excesses throughout its histories. In fact opera now cannot live without someone speaking about it deeply as Zizek does, especially the self-conscious dimensions in Wagner's dramas, the negations of the negations(from Hegel) as "Parsifal" a redeemer redeeming the redemption,or dealing with "Other" those aspects that we wish we could do without but are there anyways, like feminist extremism not wanting man to be around,as in Carmen, or Tosca, or Wotan not wanting to be responsible for his pacts carved on his staff. Zizek and Dolar both bring a formidable array of concepts to opera to make some illuminations clearer I think. If you simply want opera to go on as it is without comment, simply sit back and let it wash over your brain, well this is not a book for you.

Opera on the Couch.......2002-04-02

To those who love opera and know nothing about psychoanalysis or philosophy this book will be challenging and probably incomprehensible. Still, if anyone can get an Opera Queen to think, it might be Slavoj Zizek and Mladen Dolar. Dolar's is a more conventional and comprehensive treatment of the history of opera as a history of ideas. It is excellent and one can almost read the copious notes as a separate and equally enjoyable experience. Zizek uses particular operas to explain profound and fascinating ideas about love and death, narcissism and self-destruction, through the ideas (among others) of Lacan and Hegel. Ever since Zizek's seminal books explaining the complexities of Lacan and Hegel through popular entertainment he has accrued fame in intellectual circles without ever becoming pompous or complacent. He makes for enjoyable and provocative reading and chances are, after you've read him, you'll be keeping an eye out for his next book.

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Virtue and Terror (Revolution!)
Maximilien Robespierre
Manufacturer: Verso
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 184467584X

Book Description

In this dazzling new series, philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Zizek interrogates key writings on revolution. Robespierre's defense of the French Revolution remains one of the most powerful and unnerving justifications for political violence ever written, and has extraordinary resonance in a world obsessed with terrorism and appalled by the language of its proponents. Yet today, the French Revolution is celebrated as the event which gave birth to a nation built on the principles of enlightenment… So how should a contemporary audience approach Robespierre's vindication of revolutionary terror? Zizek takes a helter-skelter route through these contradictions, marshalling all the breadth of analogy for which he is famous. "If the spring of popular government in time of peace is virtue, the springs of popular government in revolution are at once virtue and terror: virtue, without which terror is fatal; terror, without which virtue is powerless."—Robespierre

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A critically important acquisition
Incredible
High theory's prankster at his best

Interrogating the Real
Slavoj Zizek
Manufacturer: Continuum International Publishing Group
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Ecrits: The First Complete Edition in English

ASIN: 0826489737

Book Description

Interrogating the Real is the first volume of the collected writings of Slavoj Zizek - undoubtedly one of the world's leading contemporary cultural commentators. Drawing upon the full range of his prolific output, the articles here cover psychoanalysis, philosophy and popular culture. Thematically organised, the book is divided into three sections and includes a new preface by Zizek himself, as well as an introduction by the editors and a helpful glossary for those coming to Zizek's work for the first time. This collection, along with the second volume - The Universal Exception - is an excellent introduction to the work of one of the most inspiring, provocative and entertaining cultural critics at work today.

Customer Reviews:

A critically important acquisition.......2007-02-03

The first collection in a series of essays by Slavoj Zizek, who is a Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Ljubljana, Slovena and Visiting Professor at the New School for Social Research, New York and one of the leading contemporary cultural critics of the 20th century. A critically important acquisition for academic library Philosophy collections and student reading lists, this first volume of Professor Zizek's work is divided into three principle sections: 'Lacanian Orientations'; 'Philosophy Traversed by Psychoanalysis'; and 'The Fantasy of Ideology'. Enhanced with a glossary, an index, and an 'Author's Afterword: Why Hegel is a Lacanian', "Interrogating The Real" showcases impeccable scholarship and clearly documents Professor Zizek as an original and insightful philosopher in his own right.

Incredible.......2006-04-22

What sizzling insistencies are presented here, served up on a platter of salad encrusted banana littered plenitude succulently garnished with mouth watering 1001 Nights Supa Sauce plus ultra crispy fries smoothly layered on delicious South Pacific grillings lightly and pliantly tossed and toasted in a sensational semiological batter, a perfect feast for the egregious sorts that salt away in the mines of academe with nary a twist or tryst such a work is a marvel to behold as it nestles willy nilly on the shelves of Opportune, suppurating and gently roasting in a chested blemish of buffoons...

High theory's prankster at his best.......2006-01-12

I still have a few essays left in this little gem, but I would already highly recommend it because I have never had a better experience understanding Zizek.

First off, if you simply wish to gain a straight forward understanding of some of the possible theoretically usages of Lacan, Hegel, Kant, Foucault, Heidegger and a host of other heavy hitters then Zizek is your man. He loves a tangent, but he uses anecodotes, jokes and examples from popular culture to demonstrate difficult concepts in a clear way. (In my opion, that's what real genius is.)

Secondly, the essays are very witty, sometimes even hilarious. Whether Zizek is explaining that the Lacanian analyst is like Hannibal Lecter trying to eat Clarisse Starling's 'Dasein' or describing the perverse self-denials in Casablanca, he is always pretty snarky.

Lastly, I think Zizek, despite his penchant for silliness, does have a serious project. I think he wants people to use logic to transcend academic and psuedo-academic fads and to understand that human beings are miraculous and miraculously cracked. Zizek is miraculously cracked, that's for sure.

Welcome to the Desert of the Real: Five Essays on September 11 and Related Dates

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A Renaissance of Political Philosophy
a great book
Psychoanalysis meets 9/11
Reality as illusion

Welcome to the Desert of the Real: Five Essays on September 11 and Related Dates
Slavoj Zizek
Manufacturer: Verso
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1859844219

Book Description

In the months after September 11, titles like 'The End of the Age of Irony' abound in our media. Liberals and conservatives proclaim the end of the American holiday from history. Now the easy games are over; one should take sides. Zizek argues this is precisely the temptation to be resisted. In such moments of apparently clear choices, the real alternatives are most hidden. Welcome to the Desert of the Real steps back, complicating the choices imposed on us. It proposes that global capitalism is fundamentalist and that America was complicit in the rise of Muslim fundamentalism. It points to our dreaming about the catastrophe in numerous disaster movies before it happened, and explores the irony that the tragedy has been used to legitimize torture. Last but not least it analyses the fiasco of the predominant leftist response to the events.

About the series: Appearing on the first anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, these series of books from Verso present analyses of the United States, the media, and the events surrounding September 11 by Europe's most stimulating and provocative philosophers. Probing beneath the level of TV commentary, political and cultural orthodoxies, and 'rent-a-quote' punditry, Baudrillard, Virilio, and Zizek offer three highly original and readable accounts that serve as fascinating introductions to the direction of their respective projects, and as insightful critiques of the unfolding events. This series seeks to comprehend the philosophical meaning of September 11 and will leave untouched none of the prevailing views currently propagated.

Customer Reviews:

A Renaissance of Political Philosophy.......2006-06-12

I am overwhelmed by Zizek's judgment of the political situation he presents in this book. It concerns world politics after 9/11 and is still very actual. What makes this book so interesting, is that Zizek distances himself from a simplifying (left-wing) critique of American foreign politics and gives at the same time a compelling interpretation of the complexity of the "clash of cultures" that haunt still our Tv-News today.
Against a cynical attitude towards politics Zizek's defends what he calls a "political act" of truth. This is not the slogan of a new philosophical ideology but a defence of a truth that can't be "relativiced" by post-modern Philosophy. Zizek thus revives political philosophy by overcoming philosophical patterns that dominated the second half of the 20th century.

a great book.......2003-01-19

~~~I truly enjoyed this book, which provides great insight while analyzing the current situation of the States. Not "with us or against us," as Bush constantly stated,but we are against them, since both military leaders in the US and Bin Laden's terrorists are following the same logic. What happend in September 11 had happened in third world countries everywhere, but we Americans watched them as virtual reality until this has become real in our territory. Nothing can justify what happened in~~ September 11, just as nothing could~~ justify what happened in third world countries, which had appeared as spectatles until that point. It's stupid to exchange one terror against another, because this will entail endless circle of violence. What one must do is to be awake from this rosy dream, to realize the existence of the desert of the real, and resist "them", who have been making such terrible spectacles happen everywhere,Mid-East, Africa, Asia, but not simly in the US, which has~~ become part of the desert of reel.~

Psychoanalysis meets 9/11.......2002-12-08

In my opinion,Zizek is the most profound cultural analyst writing today, and this short collection of several contemplative essays on 9/11 succeeds in truly saying something new and important about the scope of the events that transpired. Zizek's writing style is famous for achieving a mixture between abstruse, Lacanian psycho-analysis and popular culture. This makes him perhaps one of the most difficult but most enjoyable reads out there in the cultural criticism market. Certainly, this stands out from the the sentimental fluff and proganda rubbish that flies off the shelves. Zizek challenges us to think outside the canard of 'fundamentalism' vs. American hegemony and capitalism.

Reality as illusion.......2002-10-02

To people who come to this book looking for an analysis of the attacks on the World Trade Center this book will appear to be peculiar and eccentric, and therefore in questionable taste. Slavoj Zisek is a Marxist philosopher from the formerly Yugoslav republic of Slovenia. (At the same time he is quite caustic against those who think that Milosevic's horrors could have been avoided by an appeal to the cosmopolitan virtues of Titoism. Not within the party framework, at any rate.) He has a special interest in the French psychoanalyst Lacan, which does not stop him from discussing other imposing figures such as Hegel, Adorno, Foucault and, suprisingly in this book, G.K. Chesterton. At the same time he discusses popular movies from "Unbreakable" to "Shrek." Like Terry Eagleton he has a fondness, and a weakness, for paradox and contradiction. A person examining this book will note that the five essays are not as concise and straightforward as they may appear. (They will also note that this book has six chapters.) The unsympathetic reader may wonder how we get from the events of September 11th to sado-masochism and "The Piano Teacher," to Judith Butler and Antigone. Given the bottomless malice of Al Qaidya towards any concept of freedom, surely, one might state, it is irresponsible to say that freedom of thought is the surest way of ensuring submission and control (as Zisek suggests in his introduction)?

In fact, Zisek is a stimulating and important writer and the reader should take the effort to appreciate him. To the extent that this book has a thesis it is expressed on the cover. Instead of the attacks forcing the United States to rethink its attitude towards the rest of the world, it has allowed itself to view itself solely as a victim. By contrast "That is the true lesson of the attacks: the only way to ensure that it will not happen here again is to prevent it happening anywhere else." At the same time Zisek is vehement against those who showed a certain schaudenfreude at American suffering, or those tempted to euphemize Palestianian suicide bombers. On the Islamists themselves, Zisek makes an interesting point against those who wish for a "Protestant" reformation for Islam. There already has been one. Like Protestantism, the Wahabbi sect that rules Saudi Arabia rejects the accretions and growths of Islam over the previous centuries as so much quasi-pagan superstition. Like Protestantism it emphasizes holy scripture and even offers suggestions for a more practical bible interpretation. Clearly, this is not enough. Elsewhere Zisek points out that in a way political Islam is Islamic fascism, in the sense that it seeks a capitalism without capitalism, or a capitalism with its destabilizing effects.

Elsewhere Zisek has stimulating things to say about "The Matrix" from which he extracts his title, and about the way that movie and others like "The Truman Show," reflect a nervous anxiety that "our" suburban life is something unreal. At the same time, one cannot unproblematically search for the real, a la Orwell, a certain harmony with fantasy is crucial to Lacanian good health. There are interesting comments on suicide as the expression not of certainty, but of doubt, not as sacrifice, but as evasion. His comments on "Shrek" will be of great comfort to all those who think that film over-rated: it is a movie which overturns all conventions yet at the same time only reaffirms them. Zisek cautions against the use of "proto-fascist": not all criticisms of decadence or invocations of discipline are fascist--consider the example of Schoenberg. He also notes that the private sphere is becoming a commodified space. The only way, he suggests, for true love to exist is not for the lovers to stare into each others eyes but at some sort of collectivity outside them. He is especially angry at Jonathan Alter and Alan Dershowitz for suggesting the torture of terrorists. As he quite properly points out, if torturing terrorists could save lives, then the torturing of prisoners of wars would saveeven more. Although at one point he argues that anti-Americanism is most common in countries that have lost their influence, like France and Germany, he argues that it is vitally necessary for a European response to provide an alternative to American diplomacy. On this point, I fully agree.

The Sublime Object of Ideology (Phronesis)
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THE best introduction to hegel, marx, freud, and lacan

A True First Step

groundbreaking

Invigorating, diaphanous, decentered

Making Ideology fun

The Sublime Object of Ideology (Phronesis)
Slavoj Zizek
Manufacturer: Verso
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Interrogating the Real

Ecrits: The First Complete Edition in English

ASIN: 0860919714

Book Description

Zizek takes a look through the Rear Window and other cultural classics at the question of human agency in a postmodern world.

Customer Reviews:

THE best introduction to hegel, marx, freud, and lacan.......2006-08-09

While it is undoubtedly true that to read most recent critical theorists one wants acquaintance with the philosophical and anti-philosophical canons, Zizek is a different story. This is because he excels at giving coherent and surprisingly entertaining expositions of some of the most difficult thinkers in western thought (especially lacan, hegel, and kant). Reading Zizek will make you want to read these other writers, and Zizek's interpretations are as original as they are accurate, in both cases impeccably so.

The aim of the book is manifold. Among other things it:

1. Rehabilitates Lacan's thinking against charges of obscurantism (sokal, gallop, noel carrol, et al). This is particularly true of the chapters entitled "che vuoi?" (what do you want?) and "you only die twice." The former chapter is a tour du force reading of Lacan's infamous semiotic diagrams on the dialetic of desire (see last chapter of "Ecrits" (short edition)). Improbably, this reading is built up as a response to one of the most "mainstream" debates in all of analytic philosophy: Kripke vs. Searle, anti-deescriptivism v descriptivism. Ultimately the claim is that Lacan represents the Enlightenment ideals more than anyone else today.

2. It challenges the prevailing determinist interpretation of hegel and makes an exceptionally persuasive case that hegel is THE thinker of contingency and indeterminacy and "the opened", so to speak. This is the task the conclusion of the book takes up, starting with a close-reading of the difference between Kant and Hegel's thinking on the sublime. The thing above all in Hegel's legacy is the format of hegel's reasoning, the often misunderstood dialectical triad. Read the last chapter for a definition and application of this mode of logic.

3. Begins by making the case that it was Marx and not Freud who "invented the symptom." Another original and persuasive argument, not to be missed. In edition to a new notion of ideology and how to critique it, this chapter includes one of the best short introductions Freud's theory of dreams I know of.

People often deride Zizek as a "comedian/philosopher" who makes too much light of serious matters (see the new yorker profile of 2003 for such a take). And this book certainly has its share of dirty and/or political jokes. What this view forgets, however, is that while Zizek is perfectly capable of turning serious matters into jokes, it his ability to look awry at the most trivial matters, to take the big Other's jokes seriously, that is perhaps his most enduring quality as a thinker.

A True First Step.......2005-06-24

"The Sublime Object of Ideology" is perhaps the best introduction to the Zizek-Lacan line of thought in social psychology and psychoanalysis. If "Looking Awry" may be more fascinating because of its many examples from film (Hitchcock in particular), this one thoroughly explains those conceptual knots constantly resumed in Zizek's analyses.

groundbreaking.......2004-12-25

Zizek brilliantly combines Lacan and Althusser in his reading of Marx and ideology. Unlike other pompous incomprehensible readings of complicated theorists e.g. Lacan and Althusser, Zizek offers a sharp, shrewd, and most important, a comprehensible text to his readers.
This book is probably the best introduction to the Zizek phenomenon. It is very theoritical, but it also introduces Zizek's famous references to movies and popular culture (Zizekian trademarks) in his attempt to explain complex Lacanian and Althusserian propositions. This is not a book only for those specializing in cultural or critical theory; it is written in a language which is accesible to a wider audience - Zizek turns complicated and highly philosophical ideas into a daily practice exercised by non-specialists too.
The most important and Zizek's greatest achievement is his transition from the Althusserian ideology as reality to fantasy as reality. The idea of reality as an imaginary construct - a human fantasy - is the idea that constantly haunts Zizek's later works. The acknowledgement of of some impossible Real kernel becomes Zizek's most effective tool in his attempts to expose our notion of reality as fantasy.
This book introduces Lacan's cognitive paradigm (Real/Imaginary/Symbolic) and Althusser's structuralist readings of ideology and society into cultural theory as never done before. This book is a must for everyone who has the courage to look into ideas that will shake the foundations of reality as we perceive it. It is in short - groundbreaking.

Invigorating, diaphanous, decentered.......2004-01-21

Anyone thinking about reading this book ought first to have acquainted themself with the psychoanalytic theories of Jacques Lacan and the philosophy of Hegel. Zizek's work is far from a stand-alone, sustained, formula for ideological criticism; rather, it is a series of recastings of Marx, Stalin, anti-semitism, etc, through a Lacanian-Hegelian looking-glass.

That said, the book provides an invigorating handle on the notion of the Lacanian subject, the Real, and the Symbolic, as well as Hegelian dialectics (Zizek's "return to Hegel") as they apply to ideology.

Making Ideology fun.......2002-08-28

I thought this was a fantastic book. I've read it several times and has allowed me to develop a new more contemporary understanding of ideology as well as gain a stronger grasp of Lacanian psychoanalytic concepts. I feel that this is definately Zizek's best work.

The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity (Short Circuits)

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philosophy rock star
Remember 11. Thesis
What can one say about Zizek?
Christianity as the original atheism?
Slavoj Zizek and Perverse Christianity

The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity (Short Circuits)
Slavoj Zizek
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0262740257

Book Description

Slavoj Zizek has been called "an academic rock star" and "the wild man of theory"; his writing mixes astonishing erudition and references to pop culture in order to dissect current intellectual pieties. In The Puppet and the Dwarf he offers a close reading of today's religious constellation from the viewpoint of Lacanian psychoanalysis. He critically confronts both predominant versions of today's spirituality--New Age gnosticism and deconstructionist-Levinasian Judaism--and then tries to redeem the "materialist" kernel of Christianity. His reading of Christianity is explicitly political, discerning in the Pauline community of believers the first version of a revolutionary collective. Since today even advocates of Enlightenment like Jurgen Habermas acknowledge that a religious vision is needed to ground our ethical and political stance in a "postsecular" age, this book--with a stance that is clearly materialist and at the same time indebted to the core of the Christian legacy--is certain to stir controversy.

Customer Reviews:

philosophy rock star.......2007-01-09

i love it. liberalism is akin to nazism in it's refusal to question it's dogma of questioning dogma. and other gems. this guy is the forefront of philosophy today.

Remember 11. Thesis.......2006-05-22

Firstly, the book is really full of interesting quotations, comments, reasonings and critiques. Secondly, very much badly organized and scattered in terms of argumentation. It gets sometimes very hard to follow the author's points. Thirdly, the main theme is in no way can be taken as more than an intellectual exercise of an intellectual pop star. The idea that chiristianity has a hard kernel which grasps the real human condition (the split inherent in the subject) is not even a pseudo-marxist or pseudo-lacanian view. What lacan borrows from Hegel's dialectic, his concept of divided self or marxist analysis of history is not in any way in conformity with chiristian idea of fall of man or the idea of trinity as such as the book puts forward. It just seems to be the cultural prejudice of a man from post-communist Balkans who has very litle real say in postmodern era but repeats very old euro-centrist teological stuff. We must remember marxist hard kernel in what Marx happened to say in "11. Thesis on Feurbach": "the critique of religion as essence is over". So is praise of so-called religious hard kernels.

What can one say about Zizek?.......2005-02-06

Okay, so what can one say about Zizek?--at times brilliant, infuriating, outrageous...yes, all of the above. If you are looking for the secrets that unfold time and space itself, then, this is not the book for you. But, if you are looking for a fantastic read of applied Lacanian theory on religion and other cultural arenas, then, by all means this book is worth the buy. It is almost getting trite to hear people complain about Zizek's style, analysis, originality, etc...After all, he is only a man. Rather, to focus on the strengths of this book: it does a good job of introducing one to some interesting Lacanian issues, such as the the super-ego, the idea that the Other does not exist, Lacan's interesting thesis that God is not dead but unconscious, just to name a few. Also, many of the jokes that Zizek loves to tell are put into footnotes instead of the body of the text which gives the text more focus. Also, if one has been keeping up with Zizek's interventions into Christianity versus Judaism, then, one may be interested in this book because he does change some of his positions. All in all, this book represents some of Zizek's best work since "Ticklish Subject."

Christianity as the original atheism?.......2004-12-01

You're either gonna read Zizek -- because you have to or because you just love this guy -- or you are not, regardless of any review. So I'll keep it brief: Yes, the rambling style can be distracting as well as entertaining when he gets it right.

The book is not so much about Christianity as it is about what Zizek claims to be the very core of it, where there is another dimension. And in discussing the core as such, the book takes off as a reading of the symbolic structure (Lacanian) that made it possible for the transition from Judaic Law to Christian Love; and St. Paul's role in it. Jesus' "Father why hast thou forsaken me?" is one of the loci of Zizek's defense of the "ex-timate" kernel of Christianity: 'Imitatio Christi' as sharing Jesus' own doubt -- not of God's existence but rather of His Impotence. And after taking some very general swipes at Buddhism for (supposedly) aiming for that state (Nirvana) in which all differences are leveled, Zizek presents the genius of Christianity as the religion of Difference in which the very separation between God and Man is God-as-Man. Zizek argues against the idea that the Fall and Redemption are polarities but that the Fall IS Redemption, the Opening of the very space of Redemption.

The crux of Zizek's "argument" boils down to what he says in the last page: "...It is possible today to redeem this core of Christianity only in the gesture of abandoning the shell of its institutional organization (and even more so, of its specific religious experience). The gap here is irreducible: either one drops the religious form, or one maintains the form but lose the essence. This is the ultimate heroic gesture that awaits Christianity: in order to save its treasure, it has to sacrifice itself -- like Christ, who had to die so that Christianity could emerge."

The basic attitude of the book is fueled by contempt for opportunistic liberals, academics, and intellectuals, in short, the Last Man, who drinks decaf and jogs to stay fit, and make a habit of demanding the highest ethical ideals from society KNOWING full well society cannot possibly deliver. Zizek's venom is aimed at the fact that this very impossibility allows intellectuals without any real moral commitment to wallow smug their safe, cushy university jobs and still feel good about themselves for having demonstrated a nobler social conscience: A life devoted to speaking dangerously with all the possibility of danger (and caffeine) removed.

Zizek's enlistment of G.K.Chesterton -- who was, himself, perverse enough to speak (and very convincingly too!) of the "Thrilling Romance of Orthodoxy" -- to kick off his argument is a brilliant move and that alone makes this book worth reading.

Read this book like it was a clearance sale where everything is 90% off: the only thing is, some very fine finds come attached to a lot of junk you don't need. So, keep the baby and throw out the bath water -- even if you know Zizek can convince you that it's really the bath water you should keep.

Slavoj Zizek and Perverse Christianity.......2004-10-10

Zizek puts forth the view that Marxists can no longer make a frontal attack on Imperialism therefore they should carry on under the cover of Christianity which has a "subversive kernel". In fact, he says "to become a true dialectical materialist, one should go through the Christian experience." I hope the Chinese get the message! Is this what happens to you when you read too much Lacan? There are more Christian sects then Trotskyist groupings and Maoists put together, which one should aspiring dialectical materialists join? Nevertheless, this is an interesting book to read as Zizek makes lots of interesting connections between Lenin, St. Paul, Hegel, Marx, Chesterton and others so give it a shot.

The Neighbor: Three Inquiries in Political Theology (Religion and Postmodernism Series)

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Jesus replied...

The Neighbor: Three Inquiries in Political Theology (Religion and Postmodernism Series)
Slavoj Zizek , Eric L. Santner , and Kenneth Reinhard
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0226707393

Book Description

In Civilization and Its Discontents, Freud made abundantly clear what he thought about the biblical injunction, first articulated in Leviticus 19:18 and then elaborated in Christian teachings, to love one's neighbor as oneself. "Let us adopt a naive attitude towards it," he proposed, "as though we were hearing it for the first time; we shall be unable then to suppress a feeling of surprise and bewilderment." After the horrors of World War II, the Holocaust, Stalinism, and Yugoslavia, Leviticus 19:18 seems even less conceivable—but all the more urgent now—than Freud imagined.

In The Neighbor, three of the most significant intellectuals working in psychoanalysis and critical theory collaborate to show how this problem of neighbor-love opens questions that are fundamental to ethical inquiry and that suggest a new theological configuration of political theory. Their three extended essays explore today's central historical problem: the persistence of the theological in the political. In "Towards a Political Theology of the Neighbor," Kenneth Reinhard supplements Carl Schmitt's political theology of the enemy and friend with a political theology of the neighbor based in psychoanalysis. In "Miracles Happen," Eric L. Santner extends the book's exploration of neighbor-love through a bracing reassessment of Benjamin and Rosenzweig. And in an impassioned plea for ethical violence, Slavoj Žižek's "Neighbors and Other Monsters" reconsiders the idea of excess to rehabilitate a positive sense of the inhuman and challenge the influence of Levinas on contemporary ethical thought.

A rich and suggestive account of the interplay between love and hate, self and other, personal and political, The Neighbor will prove to be a touchstone across the humanities and a crucial text for understanding the persistence of political theology in secular modernity.

Customer Reviews:

Jesus replied..........2007-02-19

To the question, "Which part of God's Law is the highest?" Jesus famously replies: "You shall love the Lord your God...and the second, which is like the first, you shall love your neighbor as yourself!" The first part of Jesus's reply is understandable: okay, we should love God, got it. But then he adds this second part: love your neighbor! Neighbor?! Who is that? Why should I love him? And why as myself? This basically summarizes Sigmund Freud's response to the Judeo-Christian ethic of neighborly love.
In this fabulous work three psychoanalytic commentators take as their basic point of departure this response of Freud's to develop the groundwork for a politics of the neighbor. The other point of reference here is Carl Schmitt's friend/enemy politics. The neighbor being a third overlooked category that is neither a friend nor an enemy.
If you are interested in political theology, then, you should pick up this book. But the real gem of this book is Kenneth Reinhard's contribution. I believe you can find Zizek's and Santner's contributions in other works, but Reinhard's is original. But it is original in the sense of novel: I think Reinhard provides the most comprehensive look at what a politics of the neighbor might look like. I get the feeling that Reinhard is providing here a short synopsis of a larger political theology of the neighbor, and if so, I cannot wait for it to come out!

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