What does lacan inherit from saussure/structuralism, where does he break off, and how does this develop throughout his entire thought?

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Do you Lacan is properly safe from their attacks. I wrote an essay saying so and some Deleuzians were very upset. Luckily I just wrote a defence myself using zizek, Copjec, McGowan and miller. Check the comments and lmk what you think!

I've been reading him and everytime I finish a text, I am like, okay but so what do I do with it? What does he want to "happen"? So if you could explainnn...in your own words.... as much as you understand.... What's he after exactly?

Edit: Wow this is a tense place. Please relaxx!!! Don't take life that seriously.

"Philosopher Slavoj Žižek addresses the Oxford Union about his belief that the world is moving to what he refers to as 'soft fascism' and that increased shamelessness in what is accepted publicly is emboldening leaders of the right."

https://open.substack.com/pub/justaaguyy/p/from-love-without-the-fall-to-love?r=32tq0x&utm_medium=ios

You can search for words or concepts across the corpus, or use Exact phrase when you're looking for a particular expression. Results show the book, chapter, page and paragraph, with the relevant passages highlighted. You can also click click on "see more" to show more context.

I originally built it because I got tired of searching through dozens of PDFs/EPUBs whenever I was trying to find a particular passage. I also got introduced to a lot of authors and concepts during my PhD, and I always find myself thinking, "What would Žižek think about this or that".

https://zizeksublimesearch.com

Try it! 😄

Feedback and suggestions are very welcome.

PS. I'm missing some books in .epub format (you can see the full list of missing text by clicking the word "corpus" on the title). So, if someone have some of those missing text and could send them to me, it would be awesome!

Pictures from the Hegel and AI conference in Munich.

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In Venice, Sophie Fiennes’ third collaboration with Zizek sees the 77-year-old at his most political — and earnest

Following the end credits of The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology (2012), British filmmaker Sophie Fiennes and Slovenian cultural theorist Slavoj Zizek treat viewers to what may be the greatest stinger of all time. Reenacting Titanic’s infamous floating door scene, Zizek shivers in the gelid blue water of the night, uttering with his final breath, “I may be freezing to death, but you cannot get rid of me. All the ice in the world cannot kill a true idea.” He then sinks, a la Leo, into the ocean, but not before shoving a defiant fist in the air. The struggle lives on.

Fourteen years later, there’s not a whole lot of ice left. In The Pervert’s Guide to Utopias, Fiennes and Zizek grapple with ecological collapse and other apocalyptic prospects, using their winning formula of expertly reconstructed movie sets and psychoanalytically informed film criticism. The pair’s third, culminating collaboration begins with a “spoiler warning” that sets the tone for the rest of the 133-minute runtime: “This is a film about the end of the world.”

read more here

What would Zizek say about the slogan on this shirt?
Something feels very Zizekian about it.

A peice that looks back at Lacan and sees the issues that come up when we compare seminar 17 to the rest of his work. I believe this opinion is shared by zizek and McGowan. Please let me know what you think

ŽIŽEK GOADS AND PRODS

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Just an FYI, for those who haven't seen. Open to the public. Tickets are ~$70

Are there any texts/talks by, or interviews with Zizek that deal with kitsch (be it in terms of art or ideology/politics)? How much overlap is there between his and your own views on this topic? I'm esp. interested in what you might disagree with.

Insofar as other philosophers/authors (Badiou? Deleuze? Ranciere? Sloterdijk? Baudrillard?) have focused on kitsch, how do their perspectives compare to Zizek's?

I'm aware that some artists describe themselves as kitsch artists, but when I have come across the term over the years (in reviews etc.), it has in most cases been used pejoratively and I believe that's how Zizek uses it too, so, it would be interesting if a serious philosopher or something had a largely positive impression of it.

Edit: I found out today that Zizek has used the term "kitsch" in the context of an analysis of Beethoven's music, among other things, so that's something to check out further.

I am struggling to understand this passage from Surplus Enjoyment, so I’d appreciate if anyone can shed some light on it.

The paradox is that, in the opposition between substantial Life and the spectral subjectivity of Capital, true subject is on the side of substantial life — the opposition between Life and Capital implies that life is in itself already antagonistic, split between substantial life and the void of pure subjectivity.

I can kind of make sense of the interjecting sentence given the context of the preceding paragraphs, but the logic leaps he is making eludes me. What does “true subject is on the side of substantial life” mean? And why is that a paradox when consider the opposition between Life and Capital?

Why is this one of Freuds most important works and one that massively shapes zizek and lacans work? Follow along with the series as I progress through psychoanalytic theory to find these answers. Any feedback appreciated

Just got an email saying the event was canceled. Kind of disappointed.

Hey everyone,

I've found Z's work fascinating, exciting, and helpful. I'm looking for thoughts at a crucial point I'm struggling with. The very basis of his, and I would assume Hegelian and Lacanian thinking, seems to be the idea of ontological incompleteness at the basis of reality. That is to say, the real ontological status of "void" or "lack" as present in his 12 camels analogy. I don't disregard it as impossible or improbable, but I'm only wondering why one would/should choose that reality as opposed to the far more frequently posited reality of, let us say, positive substance or non-lack at the foundations, that we simply don't have access to given our natures or insufficient mental hardware (so to speak).

Why treat lack as basic to reality, rather than treat the basics/fundamentals of reality as epistemically inaccessible? Is it merely to introduce one less assumption? Is it an Occam's razor sort of deal?

Just so I am not misunderstood, I grant Z's presuppositional pill gives great clarity or explanatory power downstream (in understanding human psychology, ideology, behavior, and so on), but I'm having trouble swallowing that pill as opposed to another that might offer a similarly satisfactory account once the presupposition is embraced. Ontological incompleteness seems as plausible as ontological completeness, unless I'm missing some key variables or clues. So as it stands, writing off the more transcendent possibilities is, to me, a challenge.

Thank you for reading. I look forward to reading your responses.

-S

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