In this provocative book, Slavoj Zizek takes a look at the question of human agency in a postmodern world. From the sinking of the Titanic to Hitchcock’s Rear Window, from the operas of Wagner to science fiction, from Alien to the Jewish joke, Zizek’s acute analyses explore the ideological fantasies of wholeness and exclusion that make up human society.

Linking key psychoanalytical and philosophical concepts to social phenomena such as totalitarianism and racism, the book explores the political significance of these fantasies of control. In doing so, The Sublime Object of Ideology represents a powerful contribution to a psychoanalytical theory of ideology, as well as offering persuasive interpretations of a number of contemporary cultural formations.

“A brilliant book ... If Zizek is out of touch with contemporary philosophy, I am the bishop of Ulan Bator.... Pedegogic clarity and a gift for entertainment are two of the many excellences.” — Radical Philosophy

Slavoj Zizek 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 other books from Verso include Mapping Ideology, For They Know Not What They Do, The Indivisible Remainder. Essays on Schelling and Related Matters, The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology, and The Fragile Absolute: Or, Why Is the Christian Legacy Is Worth Fighting For?		 Publication
1989


240 pages


Paper
ISBN-13: 978 1 86091 971 1
US$21.95 / £14.99 / CAN$27.50