Television Theory w/ Ryan Engley

Alright, welcome back to Žižek & So On, Tim is still away staring at the dot and this week we have PART ONE of our interview with good friend of the show and one half of the Why Theory Podcast with Todd McGowan, Ryan Engley! We're talking canned laughter, the history of television, the aesthetics of television, memory, and forgetting.Up next we have some episodes for Žižek’s forthcoming book QUANTUM HISTORY!See you in Paris,Ž&…

Alright, this week is PART ONE of our conversation with returning guest and friend of the show MATTHEW FLISFEDER author of Algorithmic Desire  toward a New Structuralist Theory of Social Media. and his latest book The Hysterical Sublime: Humanism in the Age of Post-Human Capitalism. Matt is professor of Rhetoric & Communications at the University of Winnipeg and in this episode we’re talking about Slavoj Žižek’s Eurocentrism, concrete universality in his work, why universality appears from the split within the particular, Žižek’s holographic history (choices-not-chosen and the fantasies they generate), super-anthropocentrism and dialectical humanism, Althusser’s theoretical anti-humanism vs. practical humanism, degrowth vs. building the infrastructures we actually need, and how geoengineering fixes demand global coordination with real legal form and so on and so on.Stay tuned for PART TWO out next!See you in Paris,Ž&…

⁠BUY THE ALBUM HERE! ⁠Alright, this week we’re drinking the blood from Oedipus’s eyes with returning guest and friend of the show, the great Russell Sbriglia to talk about his new album ⁠Critique of Pure Desire⁠ which, according to Ryan Engley, sounds like if King Crimson were throwing an Eyes Wide Shut party. The album is a psychedelic mix of philosophy, psychoanalysis, literature, and film through Slavoj Žižek, Lacan, Hegel, Hitchcock, Melville, Antigone, Hamlet, Poe, Blade Runner, Chopin, La Jetée…and even features guest vocals from Žižek himself.We’re talking the critique of pure desire, the strange logic of retroactivity, failed interpellations, hysterics, the split within the law, and future histories…Russ is Associate Professor of English at Seton Hall, co-editor with Slavoj of Subject Lessons, editor of Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Literature but Were Afraid to Ask Žižek, and the band Misconstruity.Big thanks to Russ — and if you’re quick, the first two listeners to email [email protected] will get a copy of the album.And yes, Tim is still away…last I heard he reckoned that he’s being followed by a chorus of old men who keep lamenting his decisions and spoiling the plot of his life…however I want to take this chance to say that Tim’s first book has just been published with Palgrave: A Lacanian-Hegelian Perspective on Peace and Conflict Studies. It’s now out in the world and you should all check it out. Congrats, Tim. Extra fish-head soup for you!⁠GET TIM'S BOOK HERE!⁠See you in Paris, Ž&…

Alright, Michael Downs⁠ is with us again and Todd is back to talk more about his new book The Cambridge Introduction to Jacques Lacan. Listen to PART ONE HERE!We’re talking why the master signifier and the quilting point shouldn't be used interchangeably, the crucial difference between das Ding and objet petit a, and Lacan's three big missteps with the four discourses, sexuation, and the sinthome.We get into gambling theory, the "Joy Machine" at airports, Yahoo's gambling origins, whether we're living through a decline of symbolic efficiency or just more superego pressure, and why AI might be the ultimate big other.Shared fantasy, traversing the fantasy, and the impossibility of the sexual relationship…what does this have to do with Escape (The Piña Colada Song)”?Support us on ⁠PATREON⁠ for Discord access, extra episodes, and our SHORT SESSIONS series.See you in Paris, Ž&...

Alright this week we’re back and joined by Michael Downs to talk with longtime friend of the show Todd McGowan about his brand new book The Cambridge Introduction to Jacques Lacan.This is a book a lot of us have wanted for a long time!McGowan's book on Lacan demonstrates yet again how right Lacan was when he insisted that people who are not clinical analysts can also be full members of his school. It's not that we philosophers should learn from clinicians - clinicians can learn from us what they are doing. Finally, someone dared to state openly the obvious truth: like all anti-philosophers from Kant onwards, Lacan is also and foremost a philosopher! - Slavoj ŽižekIs Lacan a philosopher? Is Lacan a dialectical thinker?In PART ONE of the interview with Todd we’re talking Lacan’s turn to the nonrelation and the Borromean knot and how it marks a break from his dialectical thought, and why you should skip the Écrits entirely and read the seminars instead. We trace Lacan’s philosophical project through Kant and Hegel, explore Lacan's theory of the subject, Žižek’s quantum history, the Copenhagen interpretation, and Sean Carroll as a Deleuzean physicist.Support us on PATREON and get access to our Discord, interviews, extra episodes each month, and our SHORT SESSIONS series for $5/month.⁠⁠⁠PART TWO of the interview will be out next!See you in Paris,Ž&...

Alright this is a PATREON PREVIEW & this week we’re back again with our series on Slavoj Žižek’s Against Progress with PART TWO of the long-awaited conversation with theorist and friend of the show Michael Downs, author of the Dangerous Maybe Blog on Medium and his new book Capital Vs Timenergy: A Žižekian Critique of Nick Land to discuss Žižek’s essay Accelerationism.LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE HERE!We’re talking Lacan’s theory of language and the co-evolution of the brain and the Big Other, Žižek’s dialectical method, the difference between Land’s and Žižek’s conceptions of the death drive, Cute Accelerationism and so on and so on. See you in Paris,Ž&...Also check out Pods Against Tomorrow hosted by Hugh Manon Professor of Screen Studies at Clark University and Abe Doubleday-Bush where they reinvestigate the noir genre one film at a time. I joined them the other day to discuss Joseph Losey and Dalton Trumbo's down-and-dirty 1951 cult noir, THE PROWLER. Which you can listen to...HERE!

Alright this week we’re continuing our series on Slavoj Žižek’s Against Progress with another long-awaited conversation with theorist and friend of the show Michael Downs, author of the Dangerous Maybe Blog on Medium and his new book Capital Vs Timenergy: A Žižekian Critique of Nick Land to discuss Žižek’s essay Accelerationism.Is Žižek an Accelerationist?In PART ONE of our conversation we’re talking accelerationism and degrowth, all things Nick Land, cyber-positivity, forced choices, the zero point of modernity, and get into the CCRU, cute accelerationism, AI as metaphysical horror, the barred and unbarred Big Other, Providence, techno-Telos, face tentacles, vinyl records, and the Lacanian subject.⁠⁠Support us on PATREON and get access to our Discord, interviews, extra episodes each month, and our SHORT SESSIONS series for $5/month.⁠⁠See you in Paris,Ž&...

Alright, this week Tim is shopping for two birds that look alike and we’re joined by friend of the podcast Jack Black whose latest book is The Psychosis of Race: A Lacanian Approach to Racism and Racialization and we’re talking through Žižek’s new book Against Progress. What becomes of squashed birds? We’re talking Slavoj Žižek’s work on quantum physics, collapsed wave functions, fetishistic splits, retroactive redemption, disavowal, Jack’s mother’s poetic swearing, and whether the only real option is one that starts again. And again. And again. Support us on PATREON for more episodes, interviews, SHORT SESSIONS and our DISCORD.Big thanks to Jack and as always… See you in Paris,Ž&...

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE HERE!Alright, we’re back with another Patreon SHORT SESSION and this week Tim is at the shops buying a Tickle Me Elmo and we’re taking a look at some aspects of laughter in a few different ways.SHORT SESSIONS, variable length sessions, however you wanna put it, in these episodes we’ll wrap them up because of something that is said, rather than the tyranny of the clock.So what’s so ticklish about the ticklish subject? Can it tickle itself?We’re talking Žižek’s totalitarian laughter, Adam Phillips on the erotic grammar of tickling, Trump as the David Brent of Empire, Romanian orphanages and Rhesus monkeys, and the dialectic of cringe and tickling.Whatever you do, don’t google "competitive tickling".Check out Aaron Schuster's piece on tickling here.Jamil Khader's RELOADING LAUGHTER: ŽIŽEK AND A THEORY OF COMEDYSee you in Paris,Ž&...

Alright, this week Tim is still away and certainly not obsessed with Anomancy a truth procedure which involves reading the folds and wrinkles of someones anus to discover profound insights into health, love, and destiny…he is rather off the wagon only to run someone down and will be back soon.In the meantime we’re talking to Alfie Bown author of Post-Comedy which is Alfie's latest book in the same series as Mladen Dolar, Alenka Zupancic, Helen Rollins and many others.Get a copy of Post-Comedy here!We’re talking anxiety, ideology, the form of comedy today, and the ontology of laughter.We’re getting into the disappearance of the laugh track, cringe comedy, crowd work & platform capitalism, the politics of offence, didactic humour, and how since comedy is surprises, if you're intending to make somebody laugh and they don’t laugh...that’s funny too.See you in Paris,Ž&...LOLAlso, check out the new series on Little Hans by Kate Merritt and Manuel Gabbert which you can find on YouTube and the Everyday Analysis page as well as all everything else going on at @everydayanalysis