"Slovenian philosopher bad boy Slavoj Žižek is one of the most famous intellectuals in the world. He publishes at a breakneck speed and lectures around the world. He has an unmistakable speaking style and set of mannerisms that have made him ripe material for internet humor and meme culture. YouTube clips of his talks, interviews, and media appearances often have tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of views. How did an intellectual from a remote Eastern European country come to such notoriety? In this book, sociologist Eliran Bar-El plumbs the "phenomenon called 'Žižek;'" its origin, emergence, and development over the years. He begins with Žižek's early years as a thinker and political figure in Slovenian civil society. There, Žižek became a philosopher, immersed himself in Marxist debates both within academia as well as in activist circles, and even ran for office. Bar-El then turns to Žižek's emergence in the English-speaking world as an intellectual celebrity in the 19

"Responses to the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek have been, like Žižek himself, extreme. Critics have accused him of charlatanism on the one hand, while others have lauded his genius, especially as a public intellectual, on the other. This makes it difficult to find any kind of nuanced or interesting critical appraisal of his work.At its best Žižek's work provides a new foundation of dialectical philosophy, beyond the glitz of stardom or oversimplified sinister disdain. Žižek Responds! combines philosophers and theorists engaging with Žižek's philosophy in order to explore its unnoticed implications, its conceptual problems, or its unrealized potential. With detailed and lively responses from Žižek himself, this book offers an unique insight into how this thinker might explain, clarify and hone some of his most controversial and misunderstood ideas. At once an introduction to Žižek's most important concepts and a rare and novel insight into his thoughts on the criticisms of his wor

"In Slavoj Zizek and Michel Foucault, this book brings together two of the most prominent thinkers in contemporary critical theory. Starting from a critical assessment of the Foucauldian paradigm of discourse analysis, it explores the theoretical scope and political consequences of Zizek's blend of Lacanian psychoanalysis, Hegelian philosophy and Marxist politics. The comparison between the two thinkers throws into relief the commonalities and irreconcilable differences of their respective approaches to critical theory. By unmasking reality as contingent symbolic fiction, the authors argue, Foucauldian criticism has only deconstructed the world in different ways; the point, however, is to recognize the Real in what appears to be mere symbolic fiction (Zizek) and to change it."--Jacket.

"Brings together and compares/contrasts the writing/influence of the two most important theorists in film studies today: Gilles Deleuze and Slavoj Zizek"--

Slovene philiosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj Žižek explores and exposes how the movies we view reinforce prevailing ideologies, shaping both what we believe and how we behave.