Slavoj Zizek

A philosopher and cultural critic discusses the diverse ways in which violence is perceived and misperceived in the world, addressing such provocative issues as whether or not capitalism, or even civilization, causes more violence than it prevents, and the inherent violence of globalization, fundamentalism, and language. Original. 30,000 first printing.

Violence

In recent years, techno-scientific progress has started to utterly transform our world - changing it almost beyond recognition. In this extraordinary new book, renowned philosopher Slavoj Zizek turns to look at the brave new world of Big Tech, revealing how, with each new wave of innovation, we find ourselves moving closer and closer to a bizarrely literal realisation of Marx's prediction that 'all that is solid melts into air.' With the automation of work, the virtualisation of money, the dissipation of class communities and the rise of immaterial, intellectual labour, the global capitalist edifice is beginning to crumble, more quickly than ever before-and it is now on the verge of vanishing entirely. But what will come next? Against a backdrop of constant socio-technological upheaval, how could any kind of authentic change take place? In such a context, Zizek argues, there can be no great social triumph - because lasting revolution has already come into the scene, like a thief in broad daylight, stealing into sight right before our very eyes. What we must do now is wake up and see it. Urgent as ever, Like a Thief in Broad Daylight illuminates the new dangers as well as the radical possibilities thrown up by today's technological and scientific advances, and their electrifying implications for us all.

Power in the Era of Post-Human Capitalism

Like a Thief in Broad Daylight

What is really happening when something happens? In the second in a new series of accessible, commute-length books of original thought, Slavoj Žižek, one of the world's greatest living philosophers, examines the new and highly-contested concept of Event. An Event can be an occurrence that shatters ordinary life, a radical political rupture, the emergence of a religious belief, the rise of a new art form, or an intense experience such as falling in love. After an event, nothing remains the same even if there are no obvious large changes. Taking us on a trip which stops at different definitions of Event, Žižek addresses fundamental questions such as: How much are we agents of our own fates? Which conditions must be met for us to perceive something as really existing? In a world that's constantly changing, is anything new really happening? Drawing on references from Plato to arthouse cinema, the Big Bang to Buddhism, Event is a journey into philosophy at its most exciting and elementary.

Philosophy in Transit

Event

Slavoj Žižek

Or, why is the Christian Legacy Worth Fighting For?

The Fragile Absolute

2011 was the year of dreaming dangerously: we all witnessed (andparticipated in) a series of shattering events. Emancipatory dreamsmobilized protesters in New York, on Tahrir Square, in London andAthens – and there were the obscure destructive dreams propelling themass murderer Breivik and racist populists all around Europe, fromthe Netherlands to Hungary. The subterranean work of dissatisfactionis continuing: rage is accumulating and a new wave of revolts willfollow. Why? Because the events of 2011 were signs from the future: weshould analyze them as limited, distorted (sometimes even perverted)fragments of a utopian future which lies dormant in the present as itshidden potential.

The Year of Dreaming Dangerously

Slavoj iek

DIVA theoretical analysis of social conflict that uses examples from Kant, Hegel, Lacan, popular culture and contemporary politics to critique nationalism./div

Kant, Hegel, and the Critique of Ideology

Tarrying with the Negative

No other Marxist text has come close to achieving the fame and influence of The Communist Manifesto. Translated into over 100 languages, this clarion call to the workers of the world radically shaped the events of the 20th century. But what relevance does it have for us today? In this slim book, Slavoj Zizek argues that, while exploitation no longer occurs in the way Marx described, it has by no means disappeared – on the contrary, the profit once generated by the exploitation of workers has been transformed into rent appropriated by the privatization of the ‘general intellect’. Entrepreneurs like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg have become extremely wealthy not because they are exploiting their workers but because they are appropriating the rent for allowing millions of people to participate in the new form of the ‘general intellect’ that they own and control. But even if Marx’s analysis can no longer be applied to our contemporary world of global capitalism without significant revision, the fundamental problem with which he was concerned, the problem of the commons in all its dimensions – the commons of nature, the cultural commons and the commons as the universal space of humanity from which no one should be excluded – remain as relevant as ever. This timely reflection on the enduring relevance of The Communist Manifesto will be of great value to everyone interested in the key questions of radical politics today.

The Relevance of the Communist Manifesto

Judith Butler

Ernesto Laclau

Maxine Elliot Professor of Rhetoric Judith P Butler

At the heart of this experiment in intellectual synthesis is an effort to clarify differences of method and understanding within a common political trajectory. Through a series of exchanges on the value of the Hegelian and Lacanian legacies, the dilemmas of multiculturalism, and the political challenges of a global economy, Butler, Laclau, and ÄiPek lend fresh significance to the key philosophical categories of the last century while setting a new standard for debate on the Left. --Book Jacket.

Contemporary Dialogues on the Left

Contingency, Hegemony, Universality

"While it is common practice in contemporary theatre to re-contextualize a piece of work, the riskier--and Slavoj Zizek would argue more faithful--approach might be to change the actual story itself. Zizek's Antigone not only re-positions Antigone as a revolutionary political figure, it alters the narrative of the play itself. As Zizek puts it himself in the introduction to the play, 'Only one thing is sure: sticking to the traditional letter is the safest way to betray the spirit of the classic'. Philosophers have long been preoccupied with Antigone--Kierkegaard, Hegel, Plato and Judith Butler to name but a few--but never before has a philosopher had the audacity to throw fidelity to the wind and re-write one of the most classic plays in the history of theatre. This lack of fidelity is, of course, precisely the point: not only is this a fascinating new play in its own right, it is a political work calling into question our ideas of reverence to the canon, fidelity to the text and the notion of what 'faithfulness' might really mean. A brilliantly funny, moving and political play for those who are interested in reading and watching Antigone in a new way. "--

Antigone

Living in the End Times

Not so long ago, the term "ideology" was in considerable disrepute. Its use had become associated with a claim to know a truth beyond ideology, a radically unfashionable position. What then explains the sudden revival of interest in grappling with the questions that "ideology" poses to social and cultural theory, as well as to political practice? Mapping Ideology presents a comprehensive sampling of the most important contemporary writing on the subject. Slavoj Zizek's introductory essay surveys the development of the concept from Marx to the present. Terry Eagleton, Peter Dews and Seyla Benhabib assess the decisive contributions of Lukács and the Frankfurt School. A different tradition is revealed in an essay by the French post-structuralist Michel Pêcheux, while the study of ideology is exemplified in classic texts by Theodor Adorno, Jacques Lacan and Louis Althusser. An intersection of Gramscian and Althusserian motifs appears in a now famous debate over "the dominant ideology thesis," reprinted here. Pierre Bourdieu succinctly formulates his departure from this tradition in an interview with Eagleton. Further readings of the ideological are explored by Richard Rorty and Michèle Barrett. Finally Fredric Jameson supplies an authoritative statement of the nature and position of the ideological in late capitalist society. Mapping Ideology is an invaluable guide to what is now the most dynamic field of cultural theory.

Mapping Ideology

One of the signal features of our era is the re-emergence of the ‘sacred’ in all its different guises, from New Age paganism to the emerging religious sensitivity within cultural and political theory. The wager of Žižek’s The Fragile Absolute – published here with a new preface by the author – is that Christianity and Marxism can fight together against the contemporary onslought of vapid spiritualism. The revolutionary core of the Christian legacy is too precious to be left to the fundamentalists.

Or, Why Is the Christian Legacy Worth Fighting For?

As we emerge (though perhaps only temporarily) from the pandemic, other crises move center stage: outrageous inequality, climate disaster, desperate refugees, mounting tensions of a new cold war. The abiding motif of our time is relentless chaos. Acknowledging the possibilities for new beginnings at such moments, Mao Zedong famously proclaimed "There is great disorder under heaven; the situation is excellent." The contemporary relevance of Mao's observation depends on whether today's catastrophes can be a catalyst for progress or have passed over into something terrible and irretrievable. Perhaps the disorder is no longer under, but in heaven itself. Characteristically rich in paradoxes and reversals that entertain as well as illuminate, Slavoj Žižek's new book treats with equal analytical depth the lessons of Rammstein and Corbyn, Morales and Orwell, Lenin and Christ. It excavates universal truths from local political sites across Palestine and Chile, France and Kurdistan, and beyond. Heaven In Disorder looks with fervid dispassion at the fracturing of the Left, the empty promises of liberal democracy, and the tepid compromises offered by the powerful. From the ashes of these failures, Žižek asserts the need for international solidarity, economic transformation, and--above all--an urgent, "wartime" communism.

Heaven in Disorder

For the last two centuries, Western philosophy has developed in the shadow of Hegel, whose influence each new thinker tries in vain to escape: whether in the name of the pre-rational Will, the social process of production, or the contingency of individual existence. Hegel’s absolute idealism has become the bogeyman of philosophy, obscuring the fact that he is the dominant philosopher of the epochal historical transition to modernity; a period with which our own time shares startling similarities. Today, as global capitalism comes apart at the seams, we are entering a new transition. In Less Than Nothing, the pinnacle publication of a distinguished career, Slavoj Žižek argues that it is imperative that we not simply return to Hegel but that we repeat and exceed his triumphs,overcoming his limitations by being even more Hegelian than the master himself.

Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism

Less Than Nothing

One hundred years after the Russian Revolution, Zizek shows why Lenin's thought is still important today V. I. Lenin's originality and importance as a revolutionary leader is most often associated with the seizure of power in 1917. But, in this new study and collection of Lenin's original texts, Slavoj Zizek argues that his true greatness can be better grasped in the last two years of his political life. Russia had survived foreign invasion, embargo and a terrifying civil war, as well as internal revolts such as the one at Kronstadt in 1921. But the new state was exhausted, isolated and disorientated. As the anticipated world revolution receded into the distance, new paths had to be charted if the Soviet state was to survive. With his characteristic brio and provocative insight, Zizek suggests that Lenin's courage as a thinker can be found in his willingness to face this reality of retreat unflinchingly. In today's world, characterized by political turbulence, economic crises and geopolitical tensions, we should revisit Lenin's combination of sober lucidity and revolutionary determination.

Remembering, Repeating, and Working Through

Lenin 2017

Is global emancipation a lost cause? Are universal values outdated relics of an earlier age? In fear of the horrors of totalitarianism should we submit ourselves to a miserable third way of economic liberalism and government-as-administration? In this major new work, philosophical sharpshooter Slavoj Žižek takes on the reigning ideology with a plea that we should re-appropriate several ‘lost causes,’ and look for the kernel of truth in the ‘totalitarian’ politics of the past. Examining Heidegger’s seduction by fascism and Foucault’s flirtation with the Iranian Revolution, he suggests that these were the ‘right steps in the wrong direction.’ He argues that while the revolutionary terror of Robespierre, Mao and the Bolsheviks ended in historic failure and monstrosity, this is not the whole story. There is, in fact, a redemptive moment that gets lost in the outright liberal-democratic rejection of revolutionary authoritarianism and the valorization of soft, consensual, decentralized politics. Žižek claims that, particularly in light of the forthcoming ecological crisis, we should reinvent revolutionary terror and the dictatorship of the proletariat in the struggle for universal emancipation. We need to courageously accept the return to this Cause — even if we court the risk of a catastrophic disaster. In the words of Samuel Beckett: ‘Try again. Fail again. Fail better.’

In Defense of Lost Causes

Film theory is in crisis. The dominant psychoanalytical paradigm is contested by cognitive models and post-theory. In the background is a wider crisis in cultural studies, particularly as regards the public role of the politically engaged intellectual. In this major new study Slavoj Zizek challenges both cognitivist-historicist accounts of cinema and conventional film theory. Arguing that the reading of Lacan operative in the '70s and '80s was particularly reductive, Zizek asserts that there is "another Lacan," in reference to whom film theory, cultural studies, and critical thought as such can be transformed and revitalized. He supports and expands this argument with an extensive reading of the work of Kieslowski and, in a substantial appendix, with a discussion of the relationship between Christianity, Gothicism and the "progressive digitalisation of our life-world."

The Fright of Real Tears

Srecko Horvat

Avrupa Birligi ve Onun Hosnutsuzluklari

Avrupa Ne Istiyor

The latest book from "the most despicable philosopher in the West" (New Republic) considers the new dangers and radical possibilities set in motion by advances in Big Tech. In recent years, techno-scientific progress has started to utterly transform our world--changing it almost beyond recognition. In this extraordinary new book, renowned philosopher Slavoj Žižek turns to look at the brave new world of Big Tech, revealing how, with each new wave of innovation, we find ourselves moving closer and closer to a bizarrely literal realization of Marx's prediction that "all that is solid melts into air." With the automation of work, the virtualization of money, the dissipation of class communities, and the rise of immaterial, intellectual labor, the global capitalist edifice is beginning to crumble, more quickly than ever before--and it is now on the verge of vanishing entirely. But what will come next? Against a backdrop of constant socio-technological upheaval, how could any kind of authentic change take place? In such a context, Žižek argues, there can be no great social triumph--because lasting revolution has already come into the scene, like a thief in broad daylight, stealing into sight right before our very eyes. What we must do now is wake up and see it. Urgent as ever, Like a Thief in Broad Daylight illuminates the new dangers as well as the radical possibilities thrown up by today's technological and scientific advances, and their electrifying implications for us all.

Slavoj Zizek

Books

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