Category Archives: Zizek

ZIZ296 Only a Catastrophy Can Save Us (04.03.23)

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To conclude this years discourse programme, Elevate Festival welcomes Slavoj Žižek to Orpheum Graz. In his lecture “Only A Catastrophe Can Save Us” he asks, in view of global crises and swelling doomsday scenarios: What if the great catastrophe is not just a threat to be avoided; but something necessary to wake us up? Moderated by Viennese director and author Sebastian Brauneis

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ZIZ291 Should We Trust Nature More than Ourselves? (02.06.2022)

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Are we above nature? How can we combat extremism? How do extreme ideologies often become their opposite? In a lively discussion between Slavoj Žižek and Yuval Noah Harari, the two thinkers debate extremist ideology, our role in nature, the notions of good and evil, and catastrophes of the past. The conversation is moderated by Günes Taylor, and was filmed on June 2, 2022 as part of the HowTheLightGetsIn Festival.

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ZIZ290 What is freedom today? (27.05.2022)

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Isn’t Ukraine too much hurt because of its desire for freedom? We will be able to discuss this live with a lecturer who is in the TOP-25 of the world’s best intellectuals according to Prospect Magazine (UK) and Foreign Policy (USA). He was nicknamed “Elvis of Theory of Culture” and “the most dangerous philosopher in the world.”

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ZIZ287 Discussion on Lacan (23.03.2022)

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Slavoj Zizek, Todd McGowan, and Russ Sbriglia explore the points of greatest strength and greatest weakness in the thought of Jacques Lacan. They focus on the notion of surplus enjoyment, the formulas of sexuation, and the four discourses. They frame this discussion with analysis of the current Russian aggression against Ukraine, which they look at in psychoanalytic terms.

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ZIZ284 GTAA Season 3 Episode 29: The Return of Slavoj Zizek (25.01.2022)

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Ben Burgis and the GTAA crew talk about Hitchens and lesser figures who “left the left.” Slovenian anti-capitalist philosopher Slavoj Zizek returns to the show to talk about subjects ranging from communism to AOC’s boyfriend’s feet. There’s a preview of the last patron episode w/Conrad Hamilton, Professor Jennifer Burgis comes on for a philosophy segment, and Ethan Hershenfeld comes on to hangout and watch clips of William Lane Craig and Ben Shapiro in the postgame for patrons

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ZIZ283 We Need Further Catastrophes to Awaken Us (23.12.2021)

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Briahna Joy Gray asks the Slovenian philosopher to revisit his stance on Biden and Chomsky’s vote blue no matter who take from exactly a year ago. Is it enough for the left to merely hold Biden accountable to his own campaign promises? Or should somebody be demanding more? Perhaps something more in line with what the people actually want? Brie also asks Žižek about Andrew Yang’s Forward Party and vote withholding, Žižek stance on vaccine mandates, Julian Assange, lab leak theory, the left’s confused immigration policy, and student loan debt

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ZIZ267 Slavoj Zizek Explains Himself (06.02.2021)

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This conversation with Slavoj Zizek was inspired by a previous interview with Michael Albert. After discussing Albert’s ideas about participatory economics, Douglas Lain mentioned that unlike Chomsky and Albert, he believed that critical theory was important to the struggle for socialism and mentioned that Slavoj Zizek’s Hegelian leftism was particularly interesting. Albert disagreed. In an effort to clear the air, Lain invited Zizek and Albert to appear on the channel and discuss the matter. Only Zizek agreed to appear on the Zero Books youtube channel.

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ZIZ257 The Dash: A discussion with Rebecca Comay and Frank Ruda (23.10.2018)

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The Department of German at NYU, the NYU Department of Comparative Literature, and Deutsches Haus at NYU present a discussion between Slavoj Žižek, Rebecca Comay, and Frank Ruda which will revolve around Comay and Ruda’s book The Dash—The Other Side of Absolute Knowing.
Deutsches Haus at NYU

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ZIZ241 For a Left that Dares Speak its Name (09.10.2019)

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Žižek dissects our current political and social climate, discussing everything from Jordan Peterson and sex ‘unicorns’ to Greta Thunberg and Chairman Mao. This is Žižek’s attempt to elucidate the major political issues of the day from a truly radical left position.
Institute for the Radical Imagination
New York, USA

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ZIZ229 Disorder Under Heaven (03.04.2019)

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During the third Talk Europe Robert Pfaller, Slavoj Žižek, Peter Pilz & Judith Ransmayr had a discussion about the future of europe. Unfortunately, everybody except Žižek talked in german, so I had to cut them out. You can find the full debate here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udqlXkBV6fQ
Marxpalast, Vienna

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ZIZ205 Interview at the Book Fair Leipzig (17.03.2018)

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In an interview with the german newspaper Neues Deutschland, Žižek talks about DDR-pornography, #metoo, the new blade runner movie and robots.

The first question he was asked is in german and was “You introduced the term disparities. Does Wolfgang Fritz Haug now have to rewrite his historical-critical dictionary of marxism?”

Maulwurf means mole

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ZIZ202 Re-Reading the Revolution (06.10.2017)

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The School of Law and the Birkbeck Institute of the Humanities are very pleased to announce this historic event, featuring two of Europe’s foremost intellectuals in conversation with each other on their recent work. While Slavoj Žižek is a regular presence at Birkbeck, this will be Jean-Claude Milner’s only second visit here and the first time that the two philosophers will address each other’s work in front of a public audience.

Birkbeck, University of London

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ZIZ201 Transcendental Subjectivity Part 2 (06.10.2017)

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Masterclass: Masterclass: Transcendental Subjectivity, Sexual Difference, Brain Sciences Part 2. The two classes will examine how Lacan’s teaching enables us to grasp sexual difference as the constitutive feature of transcendental subjectivity, plus how recent advances in brain sciences continue to rely on transcendental presuppositions. The question to be discussed is: how will the new results of brain sciences, as well as the digitalization of our lives, affect subjectivity, especially in its political dimension?

Birkbeck, University of London

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ZIZ200 Transcendental Subjectivity Part 1 (04.10.2017)

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Masterclass: Masterclass: Transcendental Subjectivity, Sexual Difference, Brain Sciences Part 1. The two classes will examine how Lacan’s teaching enables us to grasp sexual difference as the constitutive feature of transcendental subjectivity, plus how recent advances in brain sciences continue to rely on transcendental presuppositions. The question to be discussed is: how will the new results of brain sciences, as well as the digitalization of our lives, affect subjectivity, especially in its political dimension?

Birkbeck, University of London

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ZIZ198 Freud Lives! with Stephen Grosz (05.10.2017)

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We are often told that psychoanalysis is dead. Outdated scientifically, in that the Freudian model of the mind has been superseded by neurobiology; outdated clinically, where the talking cure has lost ground to drug treatment or behavioural therapy; outdated socially, where the idea that we are repressed by the norms of others is no longer stocked in today’s supermarket of free choices. But perhaps the moment of psychoanalysis has only just arrived.
Emmanuel Centre, London

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ZIZ194 Lesson from „Airpokalypse“ (30.06.2017)

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Slavoj Žižek insists on the analysis of contemporary fascism, focusing on the question of the reception of the totalitarian fascination of the NSK at a time when the resurgence of fascism (ideal of supremacy Racialism and exacerbated nationalism) seems to begin to shape the new ideological landscape of post-Brexit Europe and the refugee crisis
Raina Sofía Museum, Madrid

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ZIZ163 Surveillance and Whistleblowers (17.05.2014)

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Part 1 of “I’m watching you” at International Author’s Stage

The Slovenian star philosopher Slavoj Žižek in the first of two conversations on surveillance with  interviewer Paul Holdengräber, director of Public Programs at the New York Public Library.

Copenhagen, Admiral Hotel

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ZIZ162 2011 as „The Year of Dreaming Dangerously“ (25.04.2012)

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“In 2011, we were witnessing (and participating) in a series of shattering events, from the Arab Spring to the Occupy Wall Street movements, from the UK suburban protests to Breivik’s ideological madness. 2011 was thus the year of dreaming dangerously, in both directions: there were emancipatory dreams mobilizing protesters in New York, on Tahir Square, in London and Athens–and there were the obscure destructive dreams propelling Breivik and other racist populists all around Europe.

What is the meaning of these explosions? Do they have a common root?”
–Slavoj Žižek, Spring 2012

New York Public Library

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ZIZ161 First as Tragedy, then as Farce – The Double Death of Neoliberalism and the Idea of Communism (25.11.2009)

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Slavoj Zizek argues that the neoliberalism died twice: first as a political doctrine in the tragedy of the attacks of 9/11; then its farcical collapse as an economic theory when the meltdown at the end of 2008 brought an end to the utopia of global market capitalism. Has this crisis now offered a vital opening for the left to seize the reins of politics and the state?
LSE, the London School of Economics and Political Science

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ZIZ158 Is there a Post-Human God? (02.03.2017)

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In this lecture, Žižek interrogates the religious impulse and delves further into his notion of of religious atheism as a response to techno-singularity. What is more, Žižek also announces his new theoretical book “The Incontinence of the Void” that is to be expected in Fall 2017
Lecture at UCLA, Los Angeles

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ZIZ157 From Surplus-Value to Surplus-Enjoyment (28.02.2017)

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This talk considers the ways in which Marx’s notion of “surplus-value” bears on Jacques Lacan’s idea of a “surplus-enjoyment” which, rather than a simple stepping up of pleasure, designates an additional pleasure obtained by its very deferral. These insights, it will be shown, bear crucially on the relevance of Marx’s critique of political economy to our contemporary political moment.
Pomona College, Los Angeles

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ZIZ156 Duel + Duet with Graham Harman (02.03.2017)

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In the Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO) of Harman and his colleagues, the human subject is redefined according to the pressures of a “flat ontology” that treats all objects equally. In opposition to OOO, Žižek upholds the pivotal role of the subject as theorized in the tradition of the German philosophers Immanuel Kant, G.W. Hegel and F.W.J. Schelling and the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan.
Slavoj Žižek and Graham Harman at SCI-Arc, Los Angeles

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ZIZ155 What is the Question? (23.09.2008)

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In New York on the last day of an American tour, absorbing the demise of Yankee Stadium and maybe of Wall Street as we thought we knew it, Zizek’s talk is a blast-furnace but not a blur. The theme through all Zizek’s gags is that the financial meltdown marks a seriously dangerous moment — dangerous not least because, as in the interpretation of 9.11, the right wing is ready to impose a narrative. And the left wing is caught without a narrative or a theory. “Today is the time for theory,” he says. “Time to withdraw and think.”

A Radio Open Source Interview with Chris Lydon

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ZIZ154 The Guardian Live Event (19.04.2016)

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In a new book, Against the Double Blackmail, in response to Europe’s refugee crisis, philosopher Slavoj Žižek argues that the left must shed its liberal taboos in favour of global, class solidarity.

At a Guardian Live event, Gary Younge sat down with Žižek to discuss the immigration crisis, the response of the liberal left, and the future for Europe.

This Guardian Live Event ook place on 19 April at the Emmanuel Centre, London

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ZIZ151 The Trouble With Pleasure: Deleuze and Psychoanalysis (19.07.2016)

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Is pleasure a rotten idea, mired in negativity and lack, which should be abandoned in favor of a new concept of desire? Or is desire itself fundamentally a matter of lack, absence, and loss? This is one of the crucial issues dividing the work of Gilles Deleuze and Jacques Lacan, two of the most formidable figures of postwar French thought.
Debate with Aaron Schuster and Maria Aristodemou
Birkbeck, University of London

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ZIZ149 The Prospect Of The Post-Human (02.11.2016)

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Part 3 of the Masterclass: Between Philosophy and Psychoanalysis
In the entire span of his teaching, Lacan was engaged in an intense debate with philosophy and philosophers, from ancient Greek materialists to Plato, from Stoics to Thomas Acquinas, from Descartes to Spinoza, from Kant to Hegel, from Marx to Kierkegaard, from Heidegger to Kripke. It is through the reference to philosophers that Lacan deploys his fundamental concepts: transference through Plato, the Freudian subject through Descartes’s cogito, surplus-enjoyment through Marx’s surplus-value, anxiety and repetition through Kierkegaard, the ethics of psychoanalysis through Kant, etc.
Birkbeck, University of London

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ZIZ145 Organs Without Bodies (06.11.2003)

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Zizeks latest book is Organs Without Bodies: On Deleuze and Consequences. Turning the Deleuzian terminology around he analyzes these organs without bodies in the work of Hitchcock and in films such as Fight Club, identifying a Deleuze closer to the Oedipus he would disavow.
Lecture at the Arcitecutural Association, London

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ZIZ143 Home and Radical Evil (23.02.1994)

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Slavoj Zizek examines modern evil through a multitude of variations on a single motive: home is evil. For Zizek, evil is not primarily a property of persons but evil has to be defined in topological terms. Evil is a certain place. Evil is home.From an AA conference on Home, exploring the idea of ‘home’ as a domestic space and as the articulation of fundamental fantasies of space, memory and identity. The conference examined how the category Home operates as a point of political reference and mobilization, and considered the dangers of overinvestment in this category, both at the level of the city and in terms of fuelling political conflict.

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ZIZ142 Zero Squared Podcast #95: Zizek and the Double Blackmail (11.01.2017)

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Slavoj Zizek is the guest on The Zero Squared Podcast hosted by Douglas Lain as they discuss the flak he’s received for a few of his Lacanian interventions into politics recently, Marx’s Labor Theory of Value, and his most current book Against the Double Blackmail.
Original Post: http://zero-books.net/blogs/zero/zero-squared-95-zizek-and-the-double-blackmail/

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ZIZ135 Lacan’s Hypothesis: Psychoanalysis as the Ex-Timate Core of Philosophy (31.10.2016)

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Part 1 of the Masterclass: Between Philosophy and Psychoanalysis
Although psychoanalysis is not philosophy, its subversive dimension is grounded in the fact that it is not simply a particular science or practice but has radical consequences for philosophy: psychoanalysis is a “no” to philosophy that is internal to it, i.e., psychoanalytic theory refers to a gap/antagonism which philosophy blurs but which simultaneously grounds philosophy (Heidegger called this gap ontological difference). Without this link to philosophy – more precisely, to the blind spot of philosophy, to what is “primordially repressed” in philosophy – psychoanalysis loses its subversive dimension and becomes just another ontic practice.
Birkbeck, University of London

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ZIZ127 Against the Double Blackmail (20.04.2016)

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Refugees, Terror and Other Troubles with the Neighbours

In this talk Pro­fessor Žižek will talk about his new book, Against the Double Black­mail: Refugees, Ter­ror and Other Troubles with the Neigh­bours. From within the safety of Europe Žižek argues we face two ver­sions of ideo­lo­gical black­mail – open-door solid­ar­ity with refugees and draw­bridge-minded pro­tec­tion­ism. Both pro­long the prob­lem – so, con­fron­ted with this double black­mail, we find ourselves back at the great ques­tion: what is to be done? The refugee crisis offers to Europe an oppor­tun­ity: a unique chance to redefine itself. The only way, argues Žižek, to truly get to the heart of one of the greatest and most urgent issues con­front­ing Europe today is to insist on the global solid­ar­ity of the exploited and oppressed. Maybe such global solid­ar­ity is a uto­pia. But, he warns, if we don’t engage in it, then we are really lost. And we will deserve to be lost

The Forum for European Philosophy

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ZIZ126 Is Surplus-Value Marx’s Name For Surplus-Enjoyment? (19.04.2016)

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Part 2 of the Masterclass: Surplus-Value, Surplus-Enjoyment, Surplus-Knowledge
Jacques Lacan loc­ated the ori­gin of his key notion of plus-de-jouir (sur­plus-enjoy­ment) in Marx’s notion of sur­plus-value, and it is worth explor­ing in detail the homo­logy of the two notions, adding a third one, that of sur­plus-know­ledge, a pseudo-know­ledge in the guise of which our ignor­ance appears (“supreme” know­ledge of God and other hid­den forces, con­spir­acy the­or­ies, etc.). Such an ana­lysis is cru­cial for resus­cit­at­ing Marx’s cri­tique of polit­ical eco­nomy, as well as for prop­erly under­stand­ing today’s global cap­it­al­ism and its ideo­lo­gical effects, up to fun­da­ment­al­ist viol­ence
Birk­beck, Uni­ver­sity of Lon­don

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ZIZ125 From Pleasure-in-Pain To Surplus-Enjoyment (18.04.2016)

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Part 1 of the Masterclass: Surplus-Value, Surplus-Enjoyment, Surplus-Knowledge
Jacques Lacan loc­ated the ori­gin of his key notion of plus-de-jouir (sur­plus-enjoy­ment) in Marx’s notion of sur­plus-value, and it is worth explor­ing in detail the homo­logy of the two notions, adding a third one, that of sur­plus-know­ledge, a pseudo-know­ledge in the guise of which our ignor­ance appears (“supreme” know­ledge of God and other hid­den forces, con­spir­acy the­or­ies, etc.). Such an ana­lysis is cru­cial for resus­cit­at­ing Marx’s cri­tique of polit­ical eco­nomy, as well as for prop­erly under­stand­ing today’s global cap­it­al­ism and its ideo­lo­gical effects, up to fun­da­ment­al­ist viol­ence
Birk­beck, Uni­ver­sity of Lon­don

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ZIZ124 Hegel in Athens: what would Hegel have said about our predicament? (04.12.2015)

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Hegelian Battles – Lec­ture 3: Hegel in Athens: what would Hegel have said about our pre­dic­a­ment?The battle for Hegel goes on – new inter­pret­a­tions are emer­ging which per­haps pose an even greater threat to Hegel’s leg­acy than the usual rejec­tions of Hegel. This series of lec­tures will provide a cog­nit­ive map­ping of this twis­ted ter­rain, with the aim to redeem Hegel for the rad­ical thought
Birkbeck, University of London

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ZIZ123 What is Reconciliation? Hegel Against Schiller (03.12.2015)

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Hegelian Battles – Lec­ture 2: What is Recon­cili­ation? Hegel Against Schiller
The battle for Hegel goes on – new inter­pret­a­tions are emer­ging which per­haps pose an even greater threat to Hegel’s leg­acy than the usual rejec­tions of Hegel. This series of lec­tures will provide a cog­nit­ive map­ping of this twis­ted ter­rain, with the aim to redeem Hegel for the rad­ical thought

Birkbeck, University of London

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ZIZ122 Against Recognition: A Critique of the Liberal Reading of Hegel (02.12.2015)

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Hegelian Battles – Lec­ture 1: Against Recog­ni­tion: A Cri­tique of the Lib­eral Read­ing of Hegel (Pip­pin, Bran­dom)
The battle for Hegel goes on – new inter­pret­a­tions are emer­ging which per­haps pose an even greater threat to Hegel’s leg­acy than the usual rejec­tions of Hegel. This series of lec­tures will provide a cog­nit­ive map­ping of this twis­ted ter­rain, with the aim to redeem Hegel for the rad­ical thought
Birkback, University of London

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ZIZ116 Europe is Kaput – Long live Europe! (11.2015)

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Philosopher Slavoj Žižek and former Greek finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange discuss Europe’s future. With the recent economic crisis in Greece, unprecedented challenges to centralised European policy, and the lack of consensus on the ongoing refugee crisis, many would agree that Europe faces its greatest ever predicament.

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ZIZ106 Hegel, Modern Art and the End of Art (07.04.2015)

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When a philo­sopher deals with another philo­sopher or philo­sophy, his or her stance is never the one of dia­logue, but always the one of divi­sion, of draw­ing the line that sep­ar­ates truth from fals­ity – from Plato whose focus is the line that divides truth from mere opin­ion, up to Lenin obsessed with the line that sep­ar­ates mater­i­al­ism from ideal­ism. The courses are an exer­cise in this art of delim­in­a­tion: their aim is to spe­cify the con­tours of the dia­lect­ical-mater­i­al­ist notion of neg­at­iv­ity by draw­ing a line that sep­ar­ates it from other forms of thought of neg­at­iv­ity

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ZIZ103 A Defense of Universalism (12.12.2014)

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Slavoj Žižek held this lecture at Litteraturhuset in Oslo, Norway on December 12, 2014. It is part of a series of lectures on the topic of universalism, organized by Litteraturhuset. Other lecturers in the series include Wang Hui, Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Binyavanga Wainaina, Gayatri Spivak and Tara Smith

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ZIZ102 The Hegelian Wound (26.11.2014)

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Deutsches Haus at New York University presents:
Slavoj Žižek: The Hegelian Wound
Friday, September 26th, 2014
at the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Film Center at NYU

For Hegel, spirit is the wound of nature, it derails every natural balance, but it is at the same time spirit itself which heals its own wound. This Hegelian insight will be developed in its philosophical, theological, and political implications: why is the Fall a happy occurrence? How does permissiveness turn into oppression? Why does only the most brutal capitalist alienation open up the possibility for freedom?

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ZIZ098 A Philosophical Journey Through A Concept (23.09.2014)

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Žižek discusses his book by the same title ‘Event: A Philosophical Journey Through A Concept’, going through such notions as violence, fundamentalism, ideology, political correctness, freedom, and of course event.
From the Free Library of Philadelphia

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