more images
image
Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher and cultural critic. He is a professor at the European Graduate School, International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, Birkbeck College, University of London, and a senior researcher at the Institute of Sociology, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. His books include Living in the End Times, First as Tragedy, Then as Farce, In Defense of Lost Causes, four volumes of the Essential Žižek, and many more.Blog
-
The Essential Verso Undergraduate Reading List
If you think the latest tome of Giddens’ Sociology is the one textbook you need to get you through your undergraduate days, think again. Impress your tutor and learn something beyond the lecture theatre with these essential Verso titles.
Bolster any politics, philosophy, economics, literature, sociology or history essay with one of these books and not only score the grade, but begin your lifelong love affair with radical writers.
-
What to Read on Egypt and the Arab Spring
If 2011 saw a monumental change in the governments of the Middle East, 2012 has demonstrated that revolution takes some time, that conflict is sustained and that some of the same challenges are not consigned to history.
Protests continue in Egypt’s capital Cairo, as over one hundred thousand demonstrators have recently taken to the streets and gathered once again in Tahrir Square in opposition to dictatorial decrees by President Mohammed Morsi. With only one hundred days in power, Morsi’s fledgling tenure as president has resulted in examples of sweeping authority, transferring all executive and legislative powers from the military council to his offices.
Such actions are reminiscent of the power exercised by former President Hosni Mubarak. The on-going distrust of Morsi’s presidency returns the chant of the 2011 revolution: "The people want to bring down the regime".
These are Verso’s key titles on the challenges facing Egypt and the Middle East, where uprising continues from the hopefulness of the Arab Spring to the challenges ahead.
-
Slavoj Žižek: 'What Goes On When Nothing Goes On?'
On August 2, 2009, after cordoning off part of the Arab neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem, Israeli police evicted two Palestinian families (more than 50 people) from their homes, allowing Jewish settlers immediately to move into the vacated houses. Although Israeli police cited a ruling by the country’s Supreme Court, the evicted Arab families had been living there for more than 50 years. This event which, rather exceptionally, did attract the attention of the world media, is part of a much larger and mostly ignored ongoing process.
Two years later, not much has changed. On October 16, 2011, Israel announced plans to build 2,600 new homes in southern Jerusalem, despite condemnation from the UN, the EU, and Britain. If implemented, the plans would not only divide the Arab section of the city from the rest of the occupied West Bank, but also severely undermine the chances of a viable Palestinian state and hamper the everyday life of Palestinians. The conclusion is obvious: while paying lip-service to the two-state solution, Israel is busy creating a situation on the ground that will render a two-state solution practically impossible. The dream that underlies this politics is best rendered by the wall that separates a settler’s town from the Palestinian town on a nearby hill somewhere in the West Bank. The Israeli side of the wall is painted with the image of the countryside beyond the wall—but without the Palestinian town, depicting just nature, grass, trees ... Is this not ethnic cleansing at its purest, imagining the outside beyond the wall as it should be: empty, virginal, waiting to be settled?
Books
-
Less Than Nothing
by Slavoj Žižek -
The Idea of Communism 2
Edited by Slavoj Žižek -
Welcome to the Desert of the Real
by Slavoj Žižek
-
Mapping Ideology
Edited by Slavoj Žižek -
The Year of Dreaming Dangerously
by Slavoj Žižek -
Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism?
by Slavoj Žižek
-
Revolution at the Gates
by V. I. Lenin -
Living in the End Times
by Slavoj Žižek -
Contingency, Hegemony, Universality
by Judith Butler, Ernesto Laclau, et al.
-
The Idea of Communism
Edited by Costas Douzinas and Slavoj Žižek -
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Lacan (But Were Afraid to Ask Hitchcock)
Edited by Slavoj Žižek -
In Defense of Lost Causes
by Slavoj Žižek
-
First As Tragedy, Then As Farce
by Slavoj Žižek -
The Sublime Object of Ideology
by Slavoj Žižek -
The Ticklish Subject
by Slavoj Žižek
Discussions
Discussions occur on book pages throughout the site. The most recent discussions about the works of Slavoj Žižek are listed below.
-
On page 247, when Prof. Zizek speaks of the architecture in communist Albania, there are two mistakes I would like to point out. First, the number of bunkers build by the regime for military purposes is 700,000 and secondly, the population of Albania (as of 2010 when the book was written) was 3.1 million people.
- Elian Gjini -
Communism, Christianity and Capitalism.
Zizek often speaks of giving to the Devil what belongs to the Devil when it comes to Capitalism. I hold that even the Devil was surprised with the victory of Capitalism over 20th centaury Communism.Was Communism not exactly the great effort of the Devil to sell us Heaven without Emancipation?The Devil must have been terribly surprised to see that Capital was worshiped rather than his fake Heaven, 20th centaury communism. It is also then not surprising that for Christians (the emancipated) the final frontier, the final enemy is surprisingly enough not the Devil but Capital, money. Remember what Jesus said: You cannot have two masters; otherwise you will hate the one and love the other, you cannot serve Mammon and God. But hating money is still a sign of divided interests, still hating the one and loving the other. So… there will be no blood for Capitalism, the fight does not exist for Christians; they are emancipated even from this! They are already socialists and where they go, goes socialism. Like Jesus said to the emancipated: Don’t look around to see and find the Kingdom of God, it is close to you, even in you. For those who wish to see rioting revolutionaries as a means to the end of Capitalism, Christianity would be of little interest because even with regards to the fight against Capitalism, Christianity is totally subversive; there will be no blood! I mean the man died! He bled! It is done. -
Slavoj Žižek hosts a conference at Cooper Union in New York, to discuss the continued relevance of the communist idea.“The long night of the Left is coming to a close” wrote Slavoj Žižek and Costas Douzinas in their introduction to The Idea of Communism. The continuing economic crisis, the shift away from a unipolar world defined by American hegemony, and the ecological crisis mean that growing numbers of people are keen to explore an alternative, and to rediscover the idea of communism. With the advent of the Arab Revolts, millions have sought new ways to overcome corruption and dictatorship—and they've now been joined by the wave of occupations in the US, challenging runaway inequality and the power of corporations and the super-rich.Friday, Oct 14, 6–9pm EDT: Slavoj Žižek, Frank Ruda, and Alain Badiou read by Bruno Bosteels.Saturday, Oct 15, 10am–1pm EDT: Bruno Bosteels and Susan Buck-Morss.Saturday, Oct 15, 3–7pm EDT: Adrian Johnston and Etienne Balibar.Sunday, Oct 16, 10am–1pm EDT: Jodi Dean and Slavoj Žižek.