Slavoj Žižek

In the space of barely more than five years, with the publication of four pathbreaking books, Slavoj Žižek has earned the reputation of being one of the most arresting, insightful, and scandalous thinkers in recent memory. Perhaps more than any other single author, his writings have constituted the most compelling evidence available for recognizing Jacques Lacan as the preemient philosopher of our time. In _Tarrying with the Negative_, Žižek challenges the contemporary critique of ideology, and in doing so opens the way for a new understanding of social conflict, particularly the recent outbursts of nationalism and ethnic struggle. Are we, Žižek asks, confined to a postmodern universe in which truth is reduced to the contingent effect of various discursive practices and where our subjectivity is dispersed through a multitude of ideological positions? _No_ is his answer, and the way out is a return to philosophy. This revisit to German Idealism allows Žižek to recast the critique of ideology as a tool for disclosing the dynamic of our society, a crucial aspect of which is the debate over nationalism, particularly as it has developed in the Balkans—Žižek's home. He brings the debate over nationalism into the sphere of contemporary cultural politics, breaking the impasse centered on nationalisms simultaneously fascistic and anticolonial aspirations. Provocatively, Žižek argues that what drives nationalistic and ethnic antagonism is a collectively driven refusal of our own enjoyment. Using examples from popular culture and high theory to illuminate each other—opera, film noir, capitalist universalism, religious and ethnic fundamentalism—this work testifies to the fact that, far more radically than the postmodern sophists, Kant and Hegel are our contemporaries.

What is the basis of belief in an era when globalization, multiculturalism and big business are the new religion? Slavoj Zizek, renowned philosopher and irrepressible cultural critic takes on all comers in this compelling and breathless new book. From 'cyberspace reason' to the paradox that is 'Western Buddhism', _On Belief_ gets behind the contours of the way we normally think about belief, in particular Judaism and Christianity. Holding up the so-called authenticity of religious belief to critical light, Zizek draws on psychoanalysis, film and philosophy to reveal in startling fashion that nothing could be worse for believers than their beliefs turning out to be true.

After reading Koltaj’s study with great admiration, I decided to focus in this brief afterword on a very specific topic: the challenge posed to the Christian theology by the vision (or, rather, hypothesis) of so-called Singularity. I am not dealing here with the technological feasibility of the project of Singularity (there are serious doubts about it), I just want to confront two different logics of the Fall and Redemption. The stakes of this difference are not only theological but also political: if one wants to preserve the emancipatory core of Christianity, it is crucial to remain faithful to the authentic Christian notion of Redemption.

La parallaxe est le déplacement apparent d'un objet que provoque un changement du point d'observation. Le philosophe ajoutera que la différence observée n'est pas simplement subjective. Dans la terminologie hégélienne, on dira plutôt que le sujet et l'objet sont en fait intrinsèquement " médiatisés " si bien qu'un changement épistémologique dans le point de vue du sujet traduit toujours un changement ontologique dans l'objet lui-même. On connaît aujourd'hui toute une série de parallaxes, dans des domaines très différents. Dans la physique quantique ; dans la neurobiologie ; la parallaxe de la différence ontologique la discordance entre l'ontique et l'ontologique ; la parallaxe du Réel la parallaxe de l'inconscient, qui commande l'absence de mesure commune entre les deux aspects de l'édifice théorique de Freud l'interprétation des formations de l'inconscient et la théorie des pulsions ; et enfin la parallaxe politique, dont le vieux nom est " lutte des classes ". Finalement, ce livre tente de renouveler le matérialisme dialectique, tout en restant fidèle au projet communiste.

With the disintegration of state socialism, we are witnessing this eruption of enjoymnet in the re-emergence of aggressive nationalism and racism. With the lid of repression lifted, the desires that have emerged are from from democratic. To explain this apparent paradox, says Slavoj Zizek, socialist critical thought must turn to psychoanalysis. For They Know Not What They Do seeks to understand the status of enjoyment within ideological discourse, from Hegel through Lacan to these political and ideological deadlocks. The author's own enjoyment of "popular culture" makes this an engaging and lucid exposition, in which Hegel joins hands with Rossellini, Marx with Hitchcock, Lacan with Frankenstein, high theory with Hollywood melodrama.

Revolutions, Nations, Empires: Conceptual Limits and Theoretical Possibilities, by Alexander J. Motyl. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. ISBN: 0231114311. Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires, by Alexander J. Motyl. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. ISBN: 0231121105. Reviewed by Roger DeaconConversations with Zizek, by Slavoj Zizek and Glyn Daly. Polity: Cambridge, 2004. ISBN: 0745628974 Reviewed by Richard PithousePolitics in the Vernacular: Nationalism, Multiculturalism, and Citizenship, by Will Kymlicka. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. ISBN: 0199240981. Reviewed by Laurence PiperFrantz Fanon: The Postcolonial Imagination, by Nigel Gibson. Cambridge: Polity, 2003. ISBN: 0745622615. Reviewed by Richard PithouseIf You’re an Egalitarian, How Come You’re So Rich? by G.A. Cohen. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2001. ISBN: 0674006933. Reviewed by Ben Parker.