Warren Breckman
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231143943
- eISBN:
- 9780231512893
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231143943.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This chapter examines Slavoj Žižek's development from post-Marxism to revolution. Žižek's evolution from the primacy of the symbolic to an unintended repetition of the movement that culminated in ...
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This chapter examines Slavoj Žižek's development from post-Marxism to revolution. Žižek's evolution from the primacy of the symbolic to an unintended repetition of the movement that culminated in Marxist desymbolization was accompanied by verbal fireworks and tenuous interpretations, for example of Ernesto Laclau or Jacues Lacan. He attempted to combine reductionism and voluntarism into what he calls a “positive vision” that he identifies now with “communism,” now with “Leninism,” and then again with the terrorist actions taken by self-defined leftist groups in Peru or Vietnam. In so doing, Žižek is trying to “fill in the hole,” to overcome the indeterminacy, and to secularize the transcendence of the political to the social. In addition to discussing the dramatic shift in his own politics, this chapter considers Žižek's views about universality and his critique of Jacques Derrida's religion without religion.Less
This chapter examines Slavoj Žižek's development from post-Marxism to revolution. Žižek's evolution from the primacy of the symbolic to an unintended repetition of the movement that culminated in Marxist desymbolization was accompanied by verbal fireworks and tenuous interpretations, for example of Ernesto Laclau or Jacues Lacan. He attempted to combine reductionism and voluntarism into what he calls a “positive vision” that he identifies now with “communism,” now with “Leninism,” and then again with the terrorist actions taken by self-defined leftist groups in Peru or Vietnam. In so doing, Žižek is trying to “fill in the hole,” to overcome the indeterminacy, and to secularize the transcendence of the political to the social. In addition to discussing the dramatic shift in his own politics, this chapter considers Žižek's views about universality and his critique of Jacques Derrida's religion without religion.
Richard Rushton
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719082689
- eISBN:
- 9781781702994
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719082689.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
In formulating a notion of filmic reality, this book offers a novel way of understanding our relationship with cinema. It argues that cinema need not be understood in terms of its capacities to refer ...
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In formulating a notion of filmic reality, this book offers a novel way of understanding our relationship with cinema. It argues that cinema need not be understood in terms of its capacities to refer to, reproduce or represent reality, but should be understood in terms of the kinds of realities it has the ability to create. The book investigates filmic reality by way of six key film theorists: André Bazin, Christian Metz, Stanley Cavell, Gilles Deleuze, Slavoj Žižek and Jacques Rancière. In doing so, it provides comprehensive introductions to each of these thinkers, while also debunking many myths and misconceptions about them. Along the way, a notion of filmic reality is formed that radically reconfigures our understanding of cinema.Less
In formulating a notion of filmic reality, this book offers a novel way of understanding our relationship with cinema. It argues that cinema need not be understood in terms of its capacities to refer to, reproduce or represent reality, but should be understood in terms of the kinds of realities it has the ability to create. The book investigates filmic reality by way of six key film theorists: André Bazin, Christian Metz, Stanley Cavell, Gilles Deleuze, Slavoj Žižek and Jacques Rancière. In doing so, it provides comprehensive introductions to each of these thinkers, while also debunking many myths and misconceptions about them. Along the way, a notion of filmic reality is formed that radically reconfigures our understanding of cinema.
Richard Rushton
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719082689
- eISBN:
- 9781781702994
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719082689.003.0022
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter deals with one of the more controversial contributors to recent debates in film studies: Slavoj Žižek. His reconceptualization of Lacanain psychoanalytic theory around the category of ...
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This chapter deals with one of the more controversial contributors to recent debates in film studies: Slavoj Žižek. His reconceptualization of Lacanain psychoanalytic theory around the category of the real has steered psychoanalytic film theory in new and interesting directions. He declares that they are shaped by the ideals people posit in the real, but in so far as that is the case, their experiences of reality are always shaped by ideological fantasy. This, ultimately, is Žižek's most fundamental breakthrough: that ideological fantasy is a good thing, not something that should be eschewed or dispensed with. In other words, ideological fantasies are not illusions. Rather, it is only by way of ideological fantasy that people can come to experience reality itself in the first place. Žižek's conclusion is that ideological fantasy effectively makes the world in which people live: ideological fantasy is at the foundation of what we call ‘reality’.Less
This chapter deals with one of the more controversial contributors to recent debates in film studies: Slavoj Žižek. His reconceptualization of Lacanain psychoanalytic theory around the category of the real has steered psychoanalytic film theory in new and interesting directions. He declares that they are shaped by the ideals people posit in the real, but in so far as that is the case, their experiences of reality are always shaped by ideological fantasy. This, ultimately, is Žižek's most fundamental breakthrough: that ideological fantasy is a good thing, not something that should be eschewed or dispensed with. In other words, ideological fantasies are not illusions. Rather, it is only by way of ideological fantasy that people can come to experience reality itself in the first place. Žižek's conclusion is that ideological fantasy effectively makes the world in which people live: ideological fantasy is at the foundation of what we call ‘reality’.
Warren Breckman
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231143943
- eISBN:
- 9780231512893
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231143943.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This chapter examines the movement from the symbolic to a desymbolization that opens the door to political voluntarism by focusing on Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe's 1985 book Hegemony and ...
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This chapter examines the movement from the symbolic to a desymbolization that opens the door to political voluntarism by focusing on Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe's 1985 book Hegemony and Socialist Theory, where they sought to restore the theoretical dignity of Marxism by articulating a “post-Marxism without apologies.” Laclau and Mouffe's post-Marxism belongs to the intellectual history of France after 1968. In Hegemony and Socialist Theory, they reformulate proletarian dialectics into a theory that explicitly acknowledges the power of the symbolic as well as its debt to Claude Lefort's theory of democracy. Laclau's subsequent explorations and criticisms of deconstructionist philosophy and of Lacanian psychoanalysis are shown to be directed by his and Mouffe's concern to understand how radical politics can find its place in a world whose institution is ultimately symbolic and in which no agent or actor comparable to the dialectical proletariat can—or should—be imagined. An early ally in this search was Slavoj Žižek, who argues that “universality” is complicit with capitalist domination.Less
This chapter examines the movement from the symbolic to a desymbolization that opens the door to political voluntarism by focusing on Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe's 1985 book Hegemony and Socialist Theory, where they sought to restore the theoretical dignity of Marxism by articulating a “post-Marxism without apologies.” Laclau and Mouffe's post-Marxism belongs to the intellectual history of France after 1968. In Hegemony and Socialist Theory, they reformulate proletarian dialectics into a theory that explicitly acknowledges the power of the symbolic as well as its debt to Claude Lefort's theory of democracy. Laclau's subsequent explorations and criticisms of deconstructionist philosophy and of Lacanian psychoanalysis are shown to be directed by his and Mouffe's concern to understand how radical politics can find its place in a world whose institution is ultimately symbolic and in which no agent or actor comparable to the dialectical proletariat can—or should—be imagined. An early ally in this search was Slavoj Žižek, who argues that “universality” is complicit with capitalist domination.
S. E. Wilmer
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199559213
- eISBN:
- 9780191594403
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199559213.003.0022
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter examines some productions in the late twentieth century (Fugard's The Island, Gambaro's Antígona Furiosa, and Glowacki's Antigone in New York) that have employed Antigone as a kind of ...
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This chapter examines some productions in the late twentieth century (Fugard's The Island, Gambaro's Antígona Furiosa, and Glowacki's Antigone in New York) that have employed Antigone as a kind of homo sacer, and then applies this analogy in a more detailed discussion of Seamus Heaney's version of The Burial at Thebes at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 2004. Heaney's version was inspired by President Bush's ‘war on terror’ and the detention and ‘rendition’ of suspected terrorists in prisons beyond legal redress. The language deployed in the play echoed statements made by President Bush and evoked his administration's unwarranted invasion of Iraq and torture of prisoners. By comparing recent versions of Antigone that represent her as homo sacer, subjected to a liminal state between life and death, the chapter demonstrates how the ‘state of exception’ theorized by Georgio Agamben has become normalized in the twenty‐first century. It draws parallels between the ‘exceptional’ actions of governments such as the Bush administration and the Argentinian dictatorship, making up the laws as they go along, removing people from their homes and environment, and incarcerating or disposing of them outside the polis, outside the reach of their friends and families. Moreover, it shows that Western governments are taking advantage of the ‘war on terror’ to develop new methods of social control (such as increased security measures by the US Department of Homeland Security and other agencies, including more intensive customs inspections, omnipresent CCTV cameras, heightened threat alerts, etc.) that deprive citizens of their civil rights. By applying Agamben's notions of ‘homo sacer’ and ‘state of exception’ to these adaptations, as well as Slavoj Žižek's and Judith Butler's comments on recent political developments, it demonstrates the claim that Antigone makes on behalf of the disenfranchised of the world.Less
This chapter examines some productions in the late twentieth century (Fugard's The Island, Gambaro's Antígona Furiosa, and Glowacki's Antigone in New York) that have employed Antigone as a kind of homo sacer, and then applies this analogy in a more detailed discussion of Seamus Heaney's version of The Burial at Thebes at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 2004. Heaney's version was inspired by President Bush's ‘war on terror’ and the detention and ‘rendition’ of suspected terrorists in prisons beyond legal redress. The language deployed in the play echoed statements made by President Bush and evoked his administration's unwarranted invasion of Iraq and torture of prisoners. By comparing recent versions of Antigone that represent her as homo sacer, subjected to a liminal state between life and death, the chapter demonstrates how the ‘state of exception’ theorized by Georgio Agamben has become normalized in the twenty‐first century. It draws parallels between the ‘exceptional’ actions of governments such as the Bush administration and the Argentinian dictatorship, making up the laws as they go along, removing people from their homes and environment, and incarcerating or disposing of them outside the polis, outside the reach of their friends and families. Moreover, it shows that Western governments are taking advantage of the ‘war on terror’ to develop new methods of social control (such as increased security measures by the US Department of Homeland Security and other agencies, including more intensive customs inspections, omnipresent CCTV cameras, heightened threat alerts, etc.) that deprive citizens of their civil rights. By applying Agamben's notions of ‘homo sacer’ and ‘state of exception’ to these adaptations, as well as Slavoj Žižek's and Judith Butler's comments on recent political developments, it demonstrates the claim that Antigone makes on behalf of the disenfranchised of the world.
Warren Breckman
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231143943
- eISBN:
- 9780231512893
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231143943.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This epilogue summarizes issues underlying the emergence of post-Marxism in the 1970s and 1980s as Marxism lost its hold on the imagination of the western European intellectual left. The post-Marxism ...
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This epilogue summarizes issues underlying the emergence of post-Marxism in the 1970s and 1980s as Marxism lost its hold on the imagination of the western European intellectual left. The post-Marxism associated with Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, Jacques Derrida, and Slavoj Žižek attempted to hold onto the possibility of radical action and progressive transformation, while also renouncing Marxism's idea of a privileged social actor, Leninism's insistence on a vanguard party possessing correct theory, and indeed, the basic Marxist-Leninist belief that a theory could ever adequately guide social movements operating within a complex historical reality. Many of the resonances between the eras before and after Marxism's ascendancy may be tied to the prominent role of the symbolic, which has furnished us a red thread by which to track a number of thinkers wrestling with the challenge of reconceiving democratic theory in a context marked by the collapse of really existing socialism and the weakening hold of the Marxist model.Less
This epilogue summarizes issues underlying the emergence of post-Marxism in the 1970s and 1980s as Marxism lost its hold on the imagination of the western European intellectual left. The post-Marxism associated with Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, Jacques Derrida, and Slavoj Žižek attempted to hold onto the possibility of radical action and progressive transformation, while also renouncing Marxism's idea of a privileged social actor, Leninism's insistence on a vanguard party possessing correct theory, and indeed, the basic Marxist-Leninist belief that a theory could ever adequately guide social movements operating within a complex historical reality. Many of the resonances between the eras before and after Marxism's ascendancy may be tied to the prominent role of the symbolic, which has furnished us a red thread by which to track a number of thinkers wrestling with the challenge of reconceiving democratic theory in a context marked by the collapse of really existing socialism and the weakening hold of the Marxist model.
Simon Morgan Wortham
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780748692415
- eISBN:
- 9781474408660
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748692415.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter picks up afresh the question of whether the contrast between Rancière's emphasis on human equality and Lyotard's accent on dissymmetry can really be reduced to a matter of ...
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This chapter picks up afresh the question of whether the contrast between Rancière's emphasis on human equality and Lyotard's accent on dissymmetry can really be reduced to a matter of straightforward opposition. By exploring the possibility of certain connections between the economy and practice of masochism described by Deleuze and the formation of civil life in the Lyotardian ‘text’, it aims to show that Deleuze's depiction of masochism's desire to educate the other corresponds in significant ways with Lyotard's image of the ‘Other’ as master-teacher. The chapter goes on to explore some of the writings of Slavoj Žižek and concludes with a reading of Levinas's postwar writings on Léon Brunschvicg.Less
This chapter picks up afresh the question of whether the contrast between Rancière's emphasis on human equality and Lyotard's accent on dissymmetry can really be reduced to a matter of straightforward opposition. By exploring the possibility of certain connections between the economy and practice of masochism described by Deleuze and the formation of civil life in the Lyotardian ‘text’, it aims to show that Deleuze's depiction of masochism's desire to educate the other corresponds in significant ways with Lyotard's image of the ‘Other’ as master-teacher. The chapter goes on to explore some of the writings of Slavoj Žižek and concludes with a reading of Levinas's postwar writings on Léon Brunschvicg.
Richard Elliott
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199553792
- eISBN:
- 9780191728617
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199553792.003.0089
- Subject:
- Psychology, Music Psychology, Cognitive Psychology
The nueva canción, or ‘new song’, movements that emerged in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s, and whose beginnings are normally associated with the Chilean Violeta Parra (1917–67) and the ...
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The nueva canción, or ‘new song’, movements that emerged in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s, and whose beginnings are normally associated with the Chilean Violeta Parra (1917–67) and the Argentinean Atahualpa Yupanqui (Héctor Roberto Chavero 1908–92), have been subject to a significant body of scholarly attention. This chapter uses the impact of nueva canción to explore some of the ways in which consciousness might be thought of as applying to groups as much as individuals. The chapter starts with a discussion of the public nature of consciousness and how one might address consciousness (of any kind) epistemologically, whether through the brain sciences, psychology, psychoanalysis, or philosophy. This section is followed by an interpretation of the kinds of consciousness involved in the social and political world, paying attention to the historical and cultural iterations of consciousness. Discussion of these modalities inevitably highlights the gaps between them, but it is not the purpose of this chapter to attempt to bridge those gaps. Rather, it suggests, via reference to the work of Slavoj Žižek, that we should allow these types of inquiry to resonate with each other. Having set out a general and theoretical contribution to consciousness studies, the chapter then proceeds to a set of considerations more clearly located in a specific, ongoing cultural moment, that of the nueva canción.Less
The nueva canción, or ‘new song’, movements that emerged in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s, and whose beginnings are normally associated with the Chilean Violeta Parra (1917–67) and the Argentinean Atahualpa Yupanqui (Héctor Roberto Chavero 1908–92), have been subject to a significant body of scholarly attention. This chapter uses the impact of nueva canción to explore some of the ways in which consciousness might be thought of as applying to groups as much as individuals. The chapter starts with a discussion of the public nature of consciousness and how one might address consciousness (of any kind) epistemologically, whether through the brain sciences, psychology, psychoanalysis, or philosophy. This section is followed by an interpretation of the kinds of consciousness involved in the social and political world, paying attention to the historical and cultural iterations of consciousness. Discussion of these modalities inevitably highlights the gaps between them, but it is not the purpose of this chapter to attempt to bridge those gaps. Rather, it suggests, via reference to the work of Slavoj Žižek, that we should allow these types of inquiry to resonate with each other. Having set out a general and theoretical contribution to consciousness studies, the chapter then proceeds to a set of considerations more clearly located in a specific, ongoing cultural moment, that of the nueva canción.
Merav Yudilovith
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231157599
- eISBN:
- 9780231527378
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231157599.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter focuses on the world premiere of Udi Aloni's film, Forgiveness, in Ramallah. The screening of Forgiveness was attended by intellectuals as well as Palestinian artists and filmmakers such ...
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This chapter focuses on the world premiere of Udi Aloni's film, Forgiveness, in Ramallah. The screening of Forgiveness was attended by intellectuals as well as Palestinian artists and filmmakers such as Mahmoud Darwish and Slavoj Žižek. Two hours before the event, the second Lebanon war began as Israel entered Lebanon. In the film's commentary notes, Aloni wrote: “People flee from traumatic zones in an attempt to find a new life, only to find out that they are going back to the terror time and again.” This chapter describes the tension that foregrounds the Ramallah premiere of Forgiveness, along with some remarks by Aloni and Žižek about the film.Less
This chapter focuses on the world premiere of Udi Aloni's film, Forgiveness, in Ramallah. The screening of Forgiveness was attended by intellectuals as well as Palestinian artists and filmmakers such as Mahmoud Darwish and Slavoj Žižek. Two hours before the event, the second Lebanon war began as Israel entered Lebanon. In the film's commentary notes, Aloni wrote: “People flee from traumatic zones in an attempt to find a new life, only to find out that they are going back to the terror time and again.” This chapter describes the tension that foregrounds the Ramallah premiere of Forgiveness, along with some remarks by Aloni and Žižek about the film.
Clayton Crockett
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823227211
- eISBN:
- 9780823235308
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823227211.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
This chapter considers the topic of anxiety, especially the anxiety of the body in relation to traditional thought about the divine and the human. To suggest a distinction between repression and ...
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This chapter considers the topic of anxiety, especially the anxiety of the body in relation to traditional thought about the divine and the human. To suggest a distinction between repression and anxiety in contemporary theology, the chapter attends to Freud's reversal in his understanding of the relationship between anxiety and repression, and Slavoj Žižek's interpretations of Lacan in relation to Kant.Less
This chapter considers the topic of anxiety, especially the anxiety of the body in relation to traditional thought about the divine and the human. To suggest a distinction between repression and anxiety in contemporary theology, the chapter attends to Freud's reversal in his understanding of the relationship between anxiety and repression, and Slavoj Žižek's interpretations of Lacan in relation to Kant.
Brian Kane
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- June 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199347841
- eISBN:
- 9780199347872
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199347841.003.0009
- Subject:
- Music, Philosophy of Music
Applying the theory of acousmatic sound presented in chapters 4 and 5, this chapter analyzes the role of acousmatic sound in philosophical accounts of the voice, from Husserl to Žižek and Dolar. The ...
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Applying the theory of acousmatic sound presented in chapters 4 and 5, this chapter analyzes the role of acousmatic sound in philosophical accounts of the voice, from Husserl to Žižek and Dolar. The acousmatic voice’s source remains underdetermined or uncertain, provoking the question: “Who speaks?” The acousmatic voice can be heard in four other voices, around which the chapter is organized: the phonographic voice of recording technologies, the phenomenological voice of Husserl’s first Logical Investigation, the ontological voice of conscience in Heidegger’s Being and Time, and the psychoanalytic voice in Lacan (as developed by Mladen Dolar in A Voice and Nothing More.) Each of these four voices, and the philosophical work that each voice is intended to achieve, runs aground when it encounters the acousmatic voice.Less
Applying the theory of acousmatic sound presented in chapters 4 and 5, this chapter analyzes the role of acousmatic sound in philosophical accounts of the voice, from Husserl to Žižek and Dolar. The acousmatic voice’s source remains underdetermined or uncertain, provoking the question: “Who speaks?” The acousmatic voice can be heard in four other voices, around which the chapter is organized: the phonographic voice of recording technologies, the phenomenological voice of Husserl’s first Logical Investigation, the ontological voice of conscience in Heidegger’s Being and Time, and the psychoanalytic voice in Lacan (as developed by Mladen Dolar in A Voice and Nothing More.) Each of these four voices, and the philosophical work that each voice is intended to achieve, runs aground when it encounters the acousmatic voice.
John D. Caputo
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780823239924
- eISBN:
- 9780823239962
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823239924.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
The chapter argues that the structure evident in recent discussions of mysticism can also be found in modernist and postmodernist critical theory. It draws attention to a structure to be found ...
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The chapter argues that the structure evident in recent discussions of mysticism can also be found in modernist and postmodernist critical theory. It draws attention to a structure to be found repeatedly in the arguments of Jean-François Lyotard, Slavoj Žižek, Jacques Derrida and Theodor W. Adorno: namely, the self-consciously paradoxical position which makes any alternative to the modern forms of identity that they criticize structurally unavailable. The chapter suggest a change of perspective, following up aspects of Derrida's and Adorno's arguments which they did not pursue further. The new perspective asks what type of identity or way of life underpins the conviction that alternatives are structurally unavailable. This opens the way for an historical approach to forms of identity.Less
The chapter argues that the structure evident in recent discussions of mysticism can also be found in modernist and postmodernist critical theory. It draws attention to a structure to be found repeatedly in the arguments of Jean-François Lyotard, Slavoj Žižek, Jacques Derrida and Theodor W. Adorno: namely, the self-consciously paradoxical position which makes any alternative to the modern forms of identity that they criticize structurally unavailable. The chapter suggest a change of perspective, following up aspects of Derrida's and Adorno's arguments which they did not pursue further. The new perspective asks what type of identity or way of life underpins the conviction that alternatives are structurally unavailable. This opens the way for an historical approach to forms of identity.
Japhy Wilson
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780748682973
- eISBN:
- 9781474406475
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748682973.003.0006
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
Philanthrocapitalism is the name given to the recent trend towards the funding and management of development programmes by philanthropic foundations. This chapter analyses philanthrocapitalism as an ...
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Philanthrocapitalism is the name given to the recent trend towards the funding and management of development programmes by philanthropic foundations. This chapter analyses philanthrocapitalism as an ideological formation, which I locate within the ‘post-political’ modality of contemporary depoliticization. Drawing on the work of Slavoj Žižek, I suggest that this ideological formation is sustained by a specific economy of jouissance, which sutures the class antagonism of Western capitalist societies through fostering libidinal attachments and fantasies of organic wholeness against the unknowable enjoyment of an African Other. I argue that the post-political should therefore be understood as operating not only at the level of discourses and institutions, but also through the mobilisation and regulation of specific forms of jouissance. This argument is developed through a critique of the Millennium Promise foundation. Millennium Promise was founded in 2005 by the billionaire venture capitalist Ray Chambers and the celebrity development economist Jeffrey Sachs, with the aim of ‘ending poverty’ in a series of model villages across sub-Saharan Africa. Millennium Promise embodies the post-political consensus of contemporary ‘global governance’, while its celebration of philanthropic largesse, its discursive framing of ‘Africa’, and its developmental fantasies all demonstrate the operation of jouissance as a post-political factor.Less
Philanthrocapitalism is the name given to the recent trend towards the funding and management of development programmes by philanthropic foundations. This chapter analyses philanthrocapitalism as an ideological formation, which I locate within the ‘post-political’ modality of contemporary depoliticization. Drawing on the work of Slavoj Žižek, I suggest that this ideological formation is sustained by a specific economy of jouissance, which sutures the class antagonism of Western capitalist societies through fostering libidinal attachments and fantasies of organic wholeness against the unknowable enjoyment of an African Other. I argue that the post-political should therefore be understood as operating not only at the level of discourses and institutions, but also through the mobilisation and regulation of specific forms of jouissance. This argument is developed through a critique of the Millennium Promise foundation. Millennium Promise was founded in 2005 by the billionaire venture capitalist Ray Chambers and the celebrity development economist Jeffrey Sachs, with the aim of ‘ending poverty’ in a series of model villages across sub-Saharan Africa. Millennium Promise embodies the post-political consensus of contemporary ‘global governance’, while its celebration of philanthropic largesse, its discursive framing of ‘Africa’, and its developmental fantasies all demonstrate the operation of jouissance as a post-political factor.
L. L. Welborn
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231171311
- eISBN:
- 9780231539159
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231171311.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
This chapter discusses the difficulty of fulfilling Paul's command to love the neighbor stated in Romans 13. It examines Jacob Taubes's exposition of Paul's political theology: Paul's designation of ...
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This chapter discusses the difficulty of fulfilling Paul's command to love the neighbor stated in Romans 13. It examines Jacob Taubes's exposition of Paul's political theology: Paul's designation of neighbor-love as the fulfillment of the law represents a radical reduction within the primordial core of the Jesus tradition. It then details the struggle of Kenneth Reinhard, Eric Santner, and Slavoj Žižek to discover resources for rethinking the biblical injunction to love the neighbor in a world where the divine throne is vacant. The chapter then sets out the book's main purpose, which is to provide an interpretation of Romans 13:8–14.Less
This chapter discusses the difficulty of fulfilling Paul's command to love the neighbor stated in Romans 13. It examines Jacob Taubes's exposition of Paul's political theology: Paul's designation of neighbor-love as the fulfillment of the law represents a radical reduction within the primordial core of the Jesus tradition. It then details the struggle of Kenneth Reinhard, Eric Santner, and Slavoj Žižek to discover resources for rethinking the biblical injunction to love the neighbor in a world where the divine throne is vacant. The chapter then sets out the book's main purpose, which is to provide an interpretation of Romans 13:8–14.
Paul Bowman
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231165297
- eISBN:
- 9780231850360
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231165297.003.0002
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter assesses the discourses on Bruce Lee found in fields concerned with cultural politics, such as cultural studies, media studies, film studies, and ethnic identity studies. In these ...
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This chapter assesses the discourses on Bruce Lee found in fields concerned with cultural politics, such as cultural studies, media studies, film studies, and ethnic identity studies. In these fields, Bruce Lee ought to be regarded as culturally-politically significant, particularly in terms of his contributions to Asian-American identity politics, diasporic Chinese cultural identity, the deconstruction of white Eurocentric hegemony in Hollywood film and notions of masculinity, his kinetic, symbolic and affective associations with civil rights movements and decolonization struggles, and so on. The chapter clarifies the ways in which all of these assessments of Lee's contribution, intervention, or significance imply one or another relation between culture, media, and politics, with film playing a constitutive articulating role. It indicates the extent to which many such studies of Lee's significance for cultural politics offer celebratory narratives which are slightly problematic in being utopian. It also draws on a Slavoj Žižek's argument about the “strange exchange” between “Asia and Europe”—an exchange which is exemplified in the case of Bruce Lee. It explores the Žižekian critique of the kinds of protests, aims, objects, and achievements implied by those who champion Bruce Lee.Less
This chapter assesses the discourses on Bruce Lee found in fields concerned with cultural politics, such as cultural studies, media studies, film studies, and ethnic identity studies. In these fields, Bruce Lee ought to be regarded as culturally-politically significant, particularly in terms of his contributions to Asian-American identity politics, diasporic Chinese cultural identity, the deconstruction of white Eurocentric hegemony in Hollywood film and notions of masculinity, his kinetic, symbolic and affective associations with civil rights movements and decolonization struggles, and so on. The chapter clarifies the ways in which all of these assessments of Lee's contribution, intervention, or significance imply one or another relation between culture, media, and politics, with film playing a constitutive articulating role. It indicates the extent to which many such studies of Lee's significance for cultural politics offer celebratory narratives which are slightly problematic in being utopian. It also draws on a Slavoj Žižek's argument about the “strange exchange” between “Asia and Europe”—an exchange which is exemplified in the case of Bruce Lee. It explores the Žižekian critique of the kinds of protests, aims, objects, and achievements implied by those who champion Bruce Lee.
Japhy Wilson and Erik Swyngedouw
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780748682973
- eISBN:
- 9781474406475
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748682973.003.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
In recent years a growing body of literature has begun to theorise contemporary depoliticisation in terms of post-politics, post-democracy, and the post-political. This chapter provides an ...
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In recent years a growing body of literature has begun to theorise contemporary depoliticisation in terms of post-politics, post-democracy, and the post-political. This chapter provides an introduction to this literature, in preparations for the more involved debates that form the substance of the book. We conceptualise the post-political as a ‘Borromean Knot’ comprising the Imaginary – the ideology of ‘the end of history’; the Symbolic – the institutional mechanisms through which politics is reduced to the consensual management of economic necessity; and the Real – the ontological erasure of ‘the political difference’ between a given social order and the establishment of that order on an always absent ground. We then introduce the conceptualizations of the post-political in the work of Chantal Mouffe, Jacques Rancière, and Slavoj Žižek. We argue that Mouffe is concerned with the post-political as the repression of antagonism, Rancière with post-democracy as the disavowal of equality, and Žižek with post-politics as the foreclosure of class struggle. These distinct theoretical approaches provide the grounds for divergent understandings of ‘the return of the political’. We conclude by outlining the key arguments that are played out in the book.Less
In recent years a growing body of literature has begun to theorise contemporary depoliticisation in terms of post-politics, post-democracy, and the post-political. This chapter provides an introduction to this literature, in preparations for the more involved debates that form the substance of the book. We conceptualise the post-political as a ‘Borromean Knot’ comprising the Imaginary – the ideology of ‘the end of history’; the Symbolic – the institutional mechanisms through which politics is reduced to the consensual management of economic necessity; and the Real – the ontological erasure of ‘the political difference’ between a given social order and the establishment of that order on an always absent ground. We then introduce the conceptualizations of the post-political in the work of Chantal Mouffe, Jacques Rancière, and Slavoj Žižek. We argue that Mouffe is concerned with the post-political as the repression of antagonism, Rancière with post-democracy as the disavowal of equality, and Žižek with post-politics as the foreclosure of class struggle. These distinct theoretical approaches provide the grounds for divergent understandings of ‘the return of the political’. We conclude by outlining the key arguments that are played out in the book.
Hidenaga Arai
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780813060477
- eISBN:
- 9780813050737
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813060477.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This chapter attempts to identify common ground between the two allegedly contrasting writers, James Joyce and D. H. Lawrence, by investigating “The Dead” and “The Shadow in the Rose Garden” in terms ...
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This chapter attempts to identify common ground between the two allegedly contrasting writers, James Joyce and D. H. Lawrence, by investigating “The Dead” and “The Shadow in the Rose Garden” in terms of concepts introduced by Jacques Lacan and Slavoj Žižek, particularly the idea of “the Real.” T. S. Eliot construes the common theme of the two short stories to be “disillusion.” This disillusion could refer, in both stories, to the husband’s awakening from a fantasy not only to discover the hidden past of his wife but also, more radically, to recognize the actuality of an uncanny world that lies beneath the surface: what Lacan terms the Real. From the Lacanian viewpoint, what we usually see as reality is no more than a fantasy that can undergo a fundamental transformation when we encounter the Real.Less
This chapter attempts to identify common ground between the two allegedly contrasting writers, James Joyce and D. H. Lawrence, by investigating “The Dead” and “The Shadow in the Rose Garden” in terms of concepts introduced by Jacques Lacan and Slavoj Žižek, particularly the idea of “the Real.” T. S. Eliot construes the common theme of the two short stories to be “disillusion.” This disillusion could refer, in both stories, to the husband’s awakening from a fantasy not only to discover the hidden past of his wife but also, more radically, to recognize the actuality of an uncanny world that lies beneath the surface: what Lacan terms the Real. From the Lacanian viewpoint, what we usually see as reality is no more than a fantasy that can undergo a fundamental transformation when we encounter the Real.
Rex Butler and A. D. S. Donaldson
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780719096280
- eISBN:
- 9781526109866
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719096280.003.0005
- Subject:
- Art, Art History
Building on the theories of Julia Kristeva and Slavoj Žižek, Rex Butler and A. D. S. Donaldson explore how debates about modernism and postmodernism are played out in the work of Chilean-Australian ...
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Building on the theories of Julia Kristeva and Slavoj Žižek, Rex Butler and A. D. S. Donaldson explore how debates about modernism and postmodernism are played out in the work of Chilean-Australian artist Juan Davila. The abject assumes a central role in these debates as it cannot be equated either with the medium or the message of art. It falls outside polarising arguments over the privileging of surface or subject matter. The abject is not present in Davila’s paintings. It cannot become their subject given its quality as a non-object. The abject is rather that which resists becoming subject. It refuses to be made to matter as a subject because it refuses objectification. It is, however, not a simple matter. It is a kind of arrested or abeyant signification: it occupies the gap between matter and meaning. Butler and Donaldson show how Davila works within this gap exploiting the abject’s slipperiness in his recent pictures as a means to intervene in contemporary aesthetic disputes about the role of the medium in art.Less
Building on the theories of Julia Kristeva and Slavoj Žižek, Rex Butler and A. D. S. Donaldson explore how debates about modernism and postmodernism are played out in the work of Chilean-Australian artist Juan Davila. The abject assumes a central role in these debates as it cannot be equated either with the medium or the message of art. It falls outside polarising arguments over the privileging of surface or subject matter. The abject is not present in Davila’s paintings. It cannot become their subject given its quality as a non-object. The abject is rather that which resists becoming subject. It refuses to be made to matter as a subject because it refuses objectification. It is, however, not a simple matter. It is a kind of arrested or abeyant signification: it occupies the gap between matter and meaning. Butler and Donaldson show how Davila works within this gap exploiting the abject’s slipperiness in his recent pictures as a means to intervene in contemporary aesthetic disputes about the role of the medium in art.
Michael Lewis
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748636037
- eISBN:
- 9780748652457
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748636037.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This book is a comparative study of two giants of contemporary thought. It contrasts Jacques Derrida's deconstruction with Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic thought and argues that Lacan presents us ...
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This book is a comparative study of two giants of contemporary thought. It contrasts Jacques Derrida's deconstruction with Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic thought and argues that Lacan presents us with a form of deconstruction different to Derrida's. This Lacanian approach opens up the possibility of engaging critically with Derridean deconstruction. Lacan demonstrates that an attention to the order of the imaginary, along with the genesis of the human being and his language, should cause us to modify our understanding of the relation between language and the real, which is deconstruction's concern. The book argues that this is what psychoanalysis offers to philosophy — a way of relating its own transcendental thought to the insights of the empirical sciences, which Lacan draws upon in his theory of the genesis of the human being and of language. The book argues that Derrida's thought represents the most advanced formulation of transcendental philosophy, and as a result, if the Lacanian criticism may be applied to his work, then it may be applied to all transcendental thought. This book engages with the entire development of Lacan's thought in its attempt to demonstrate that Lacan presents an alternative to Derrida's understanding of the nature of ‘archi-writing’. It represents a systematic development of Slavoj Žižek's attempt to present a Lacanian alternative to Derridean deconstruction.Less
This book is a comparative study of two giants of contemporary thought. It contrasts Jacques Derrida's deconstruction with Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic thought and argues that Lacan presents us with a form of deconstruction different to Derrida's. This Lacanian approach opens up the possibility of engaging critically with Derridean deconstruction. Lacan demonstrates that an attention to the order of the imaginary, along with the genesis of the human being and his language, should cause us to modify our understanding of the relation between language and the real, which is deconstruction's concern. The book argues that this is what psychoanalysis offers to philosophy — a way of relating its own transcendental thought to the insights of the empirical sciences, which Lacan draws upon in his theory of the genesis of the human being and of language. The book argues that Derrida's thought represents the most advanced formulation of transcendental philosophy, and as a result, if the Lacanian criticism may be applied to his work, then it may be applied to all transcendental thought. This book engages with the entire development of Lacan's thought in its attempt to demonstrate that Lacan presents an alternative to Derrida's understanding of the nature of ‘archi-writing’. It represents a systematic development of Slavoj Žižek's attempt to present a Lacanian alternative to Derridean deconstruction.
Jarrod Longbons
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780823264995
- eISBN:
- 9780823266876
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823264995.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter takes issue with Slavoj Žižek’s announcement of the “death of ecology.” The “death of ecology” addresses the claim that there is a difference between culture and nature, comforting us ...
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This chapter takes issue with Slavoj Žižek’s announcement of the “death of ecology.” The “death of ecology” addresses the claim that there is a difference between culture and nature, comforting us with the idea that we can “fix” things by changing our actions so that they no longer harm nature. According to Žižek, human culture—including technology, pollution, and trash—is just as natural as anything else.Less
This chapter takes issue with Slavoj Žižek’s announcement of the “death of ecology.” The “death of ecology” addresses the claim that there is a difference between culture and nature, comforting us with the idea that we can “fix” things by changing our actions so that they no longer harm nature. According to Žižek, human culture—including technology, pollution, and trash—is just as natural as anything else.
