Slavoj Žižek Books

The formidably brilliant Zizek considers sexuality, ontology, subjectivity, and Marxian critiques of political economy by way of Lacanian psychoanalysis.

A spirit is haunting contemporary thought – the spirit of Hegel. All the powers of academia have entered into a holy alliance to exorcize this spirit: Vitalists and Eschatologists, Transcendental Pragmatists and Speculative Realists, Historical Materialists and even ‘liberal Hegelians’. Which of these groups has not been denounced as metaphysically Hegelian by its opponents? And which has not hurled back the branding reproach of Hegelian metaphysics in its turn? Progressives, liberals and reactionaries alike receive this condemnation. In light of this situation, it is high time that true Hegelians should openly admit their allegiance and, without obfuscation, express the importance and validity of Hegelianism to the contemporary intellectual scene. To this end, a small group of Hegelians of different nationalities have assembled to sketch the following book – a book which addresses a number of pressing issues that a contemporary reading of Hegel allows a new perspective on: our relation to the future, our relation to nature and our relation to the absolute.

A thousand-page resurrection of Hegel, from the bestselling philosopher and critic who has been hailed as “one of the world’s best-known public intellectuals” (New York Review of Books) For the last two centuries, Western philosophy has developed in the shadow of Hegel, an influence each new thinker struggles to escape. As a consequence, Hegel’s absolute idealism has become the bogeyman of philosophy, obscuring the fact that he is the defining philosopher of the historical transition to modernity, a period with which our own times share startling similarities. Today, as global capitalism comes apart at the seams, we are entering a new period of transition. In Less Than Nothing—the product of a career-long focus on the part of its author—Slavoj Žižek argues it is imperative we not simply return to Hegel but that we repeat and exceed his triumphs, overcoming his limitations by being even more Hegelian than the master himself. Such an approach not only enables Žižek to diagnose our present condition, but also to engage in a critical dialogue with key strands of contemporary thought—Heidegger, Badiou, speculative realism, quantum physics, and cognitive sciences. Modernity will begin and end with Hegel.

Slavoj ?i?ek, a leading intellectual in the new social movements that are sweeping Eastern Europe, provides a virtuoso reading of Jacques Lacan. ?i?ek inverts current pedagogical strategies to explain the difficult philosophical underpinnings of the French theoretician and practician who revolutionized our view of psychoanalysis. He approaches Lacan through the motifs and works of contemporary popular culture, from Hitchcock's "Vertigo "to Stephen King's "Pet Sematary, "from McCullough's "An Indecent Obsession "to Romero's "Return of the Living Dead--a "strategy of "looking awry" that recalls the exhilarating and vital experience of Lacan.?i?ek discovers fundamental Lacanian categories--the triad Imaginary/Symbolic/Real, the object small "a, "the opposition of drive and desire, the split subject--at work in horror fiction, in detective thrillers, in romances, in the mass media's perception of ecological crisis, and, above all, in Alfred Hitchcock's films. The playfulness of ?i?ek's text, however, is entirely different from that associated with the deconstructive approach made famous by Derrida. By clarifying what Lacan is saying as well as what he is "not "saying, ?i?ek is uniquely able to distinguish Lacan from the poststructuralists who so often claim him.

Written in the white heat of revolutionary Russia’s Civil War, Trotsky’s Terrorism and Communism is one of the most potent defenses of revolutionary dictatorship. In his provocative commentary to this new edition the philosopher Slavoj Žižek argues that Trotsky’s attack on the illusions of liberal democracy has a vital relevance today.

In this first book in the new series Žižek's Essays, Slavoj Žižek asks readers to disrupt fake notions of progress in order to fight for something authentically better.

One hundred years after the Russian Revolution, Žižek shows why Lenin’s thought is still important today V. I. Lenin’s originality and importance as a revolutionary leader is most often associated with the seizure of power in 1917. But, in this new study and collection of Lenin’s original texts, Slavoj Žižek argues that his true greatness can be better grasped in the last two years of his political life. Russia had survived foreign invasion, embargo and a terrifying civil war, as well as internal revolts such as the one at Kronstadt in 1921. But the new state was exhausted, isolated and disorientated. As the anticipated world revolution receded into the distance, new paths had to be charted if the Soviet state was to survive. With his characteristic brio and provocative insight, Žižek suggests that Lenin’s courage as a thinker can be found in his willingness to face this reality of retreat unflinchingly. In today’s world, characterized by political turbulence, economic crises and geopolitical tensions, we should revisit Lenin’s combination of sober lucidity and revolutionary determination.

"We are all afraid that new dangers pose a threat to our hard-won freedoms, so what deserves attention is precisely the notion of freedom." The concept of freedom is deceptively simple - we think we understand it, but the moment we try and define it we encounter contradictions. In this new philosophical exploration, Slavoj Zizek argues that the experience of true, radical freedom is transient and fragile. Countering the idea of libertarian individualism, Zizek draws on philosophers including Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Timothy Morton, as well as the work of Kandinsky, Agatha Christie and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to examine the many facets of freedom and what we can learn from each of them. Tracing its connection to a variety of issues, including environmental breakdown, capitalism, and war, he shows through this entertaining and illuminating journey how a deeper understanding of freedom can offer hope in dark times.

In a characteristically explosive barrage, Ljubljana’s most famous philosopher takes a passionate stance on the war in Ukraine, surveys the latest Hollywood blockbusters, and delivers detonations into a range of contemporary issues, from sexual politics in India to the prospects for a new Cold War.  Ever attentive to moments where the bizarre and the epic join forces, among the questions Žižek considers here Is the giant orgy, planned to take place in Ukraine in the event of a Russian nuclear attack, really all that morbid? And what should society do, whether on the big screen or the battlefield, in preparation for the end of the world? Agree with him or not, Žižek rarely fails to provoke in a productive fashion. By examining matters through a lens that is bold and original, and often joyfully outlandish, Žižek helps us to better grasp a world in which, increasingly, the dominant motif is one of madness.