Žižek's System: The Dialectical Gaze

Alright, welcome back to Žižek & So On. This week continues our NEW SERIES on the systematic aspects of Žižek’s thought & we’re taking a look at the work of philosopher Berta M. Pérez focusing on her essay “The Courage to Hold onto a Paradox” and her book The Dialectical Gaze: Hegel with Žižek. Why does every apparently coherent order depend on an excluded element?  WTF is the transcendental turn? Along the way we return to some of Žižek’s key examples: Lévi-Strauss’s divided village, Hegel’s monarch as the empty point of decision, & the strange loop of subject and substance.The European Graduate School are running a Leading Thinkers Course on Slavoj Žižek and I know a lot of our listeners are attending the course which is exciting and a big thanks to all of you who have been reaching out to us over the course of the series so far! The course runs for ten weeks or so with Frank Ruda, Mladen Dolar, Adrian Johnston, Robert Pfaller, Zahi Zalloua, Dany Nobus, Alenka Zupančič, Berta Perez, and at the end Žižek…on…himself….so we’re going to be doing these episodes alongside the course.Up next we stay with Žižek’s Hegel, but move from Pérez’s account of the Dialectical Gaze to the early Žižek of The Most Sublime Hysteric with Frank Ruda.See you in Paris,Ž&…

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE HEREAlright, welcome back to Žižek & So On. This week continues our new series on the systematic aspects of Žižek’s thought, & we're bringing you another PATREON SHORT SESSION.This episode is a special one because we managed to get a copy of Žižek’s Masters Thesis from the early 1970’s which became his second book (Znak, označitelj, pismo) published in 1976.So once again we begin at the beginning…again, looking at repetition in Zizek’s oeuvre with his initial turn to French structuralism with the help of Mladen Dolar. We’re talking Žizek’s thesis defence where he had to outline his relationship to Marx, why the split precedes the whole, why animals can’t wear masks, and universal signifiers today.The European Graduate School are running a Leading Thinkers Course on Slavoj Žižek and I know a lot of our listeners are attending the course which is exciting and a big thanks to all of you who have been reaching out to us over the last few weeks of the course!The course runs for ten weeks or so with Frank Ruda, Mladen Dolar, Adrian Johnston, Robert Pfaller, Zahi Zalloua, Dany Nobus, Alenka Zupančič, Berta Perez, and at the end Žižek…on…himself….so we’re going to be doing these episodes alongside the course.Up next is Berta M Perez and her reading of Žiżek and the Dialectical Gaze!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.See you in Paris,Ž&…

Alright, welcome back to Žižek & So On, this week continues our NEW SERIES on the systematic aspects of Žižek’s thought as we work through some of his foundational texts together.To follow along with the series head over to our PATREON where you can listen to all our other interviews, episodes, and SHORT SESSIONS!In this episode we’re taking a look at Žižek’s work on race, racism, anti-racism, concrete universality, and symbolic suicide through the work of Zahi Zalloua and we’re joined by Tim Bryar and Dimitri.The European Graduate School are running a Leading Thinkers Course on Žižek with Frank Ruda, Mladen Dolar, Adrian Johnston, Robert Pfaller, Zahi Zalloua, Dany Nobus, Alenka Zupančič, Berta Perez, and at the end Žižek…on…himself….so we’re going to be doing these episodes alongside the course.Up next we have an episode on some of Žižek’s earliest work from way back in 1968, twenty years before the publication the Sublime Object of Ideology, and his Masters Thesis from 1976 Znak, Označitelj, Pismo which we take a look at with the help of Mladen Dolar.See you in Paris,Ž&…

Alright, welcome back to Žižek & So On, this week is the beginning of a NEW SERIES we’re doing on the systematic aspects of Žižek’s thought as we work through some of his foundational texts.The European Graduate School are running a Leading Thinkers Course on Slavoj Žižek and I know a lot of our listeners are attending the course which is exciting. Thanks to everyone who has reached out recently, we really appreciate it.For this first episode we’re taking a look back at Žižek’s first book in English, the Sublime Object of Ideology, and Frank Ruda’s lecture on it . We’re joined by Dim and Tim Bryar to work through it with us and we're talking ideology, the curious incident of the Laclau that didn’t preface, the homology between Freud and Marx, and objective illusions.The course runs for ten weeks or so with Frank Ruda, Mladen Dolar, Adrian Johnston, Robert Pfaller, Zahi Zalloua, Dany Nobus, Alenka Zupančič, Berta Perez, and at the end Žižek…on…himself….so we’re going to be doing these episodes alongside the course.Up next we have an episode on Zero Point, Zahi Zalloua, and Three Fragments on Suicide as a Political Factor!See you in Paris,Ž&…

Alright, today’s episode is part of our SERIES on Žižek’s Quantum History and we’re taking a look at superpositions and enlightened doomsaying.How does Žižek's work on Quantum Physics relate to his political work? Was Žižek just "wrong" about the pandemic? At the level of factual truth, maybe. What is Enlightened Doomsaying? To prevent the end, do we have to act as if it has already happened? Does the collapse of the wave function come first? Is history just a "premiere" that retroactively creates its own rehearsals? Why do we fail to prevent catastrophes we already know are coming? We’re discussing War Communism, the Doomsday Clock, and why "knowing" isn't the same as "believing" through the work of Slavoj Žižek, Agon Hamza, Alenka Zupančič, and Jean-Pierre Dupuy, where subjective truth often requires the form of factual untruth.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.Up next we’re continuing the series...with some special guests!See you in Paris, Ž&...

SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK is back on the show to talk about his new book Quantum History: A New Materialist Philosophy. We’re talking Quantum Variations, Superposition, Wave Collapse, Catastrophe, & So On.Thank you to everyone for supporting our project and keeping us going. The series on Quantum History will continue with some more interviews and episodes with some great guests who have been working on all of these things and we’re looking forward to it!SUPPORT US ON PATREON!See you in Paris,Ž&…

Alright, welcome back to Žižek & So On, we’re beginning our new series on Quantum Physics in the work of Slavoj Žižek and for this week we have a SHORT SESSION taking a look at some of the work leading up to Žižek’s Quantum History.  What does it mean for history to progress if every forward movement leaves something broken behind? Can a crushed possibility haunt the present? How does retroactivity work when Žižek is talking about QUANTUM HISTORY, is everything up for grabs? Where are all the dead birds?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.Up next we’re talking superpositions…with some special guests!See you in Paris,Ž&...

Alright, Tim is stuck in the freezer again and we have TWO NEW EPISODES with good friend of the show and one half of the Why Theory Podcast with Todd McGowan, RYAN ENGLEY.Head over to PATREON to support the show and get access to all our other interviews, short sessions, and more!We’re talking canned laughter, the history of television and the aesthetics of television, memory, and forgetting.LISTEN TO EPISODE ONE HERE!LISTEN TO EPISODE TWO...HERE!Up next we have a series of episodes for Žižek’s forthcoming book QUANTUM HISTORY!See you in Paris,Ž&…

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&…