Category Archives: Zizek

ZIZ055 Ontological Incompleteness in Painting, Literature and Quantum Theory (2012)

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Slavoj Žižek talking about ontological incompleteness in modernist painting, literature and quantum theory. In this lecture Slavoj Žižek discusses void and multiplicity, pre-ontological reality, spectral materiality, theology, detective novels and political revolution in relationship to Jacques-Louis David, Giorgio Agamben, Alain Badiou, Jacques Lacan, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Quentin Meillassoux, Walter Benjamin, Franz Kafka, William Shakespeare, Agatha Christie, David Bohm, Vincent Van Gogh, Karen Barad, Peirre Bayard and Edvard Munch focusing on The Death of Marat, Jacobins, Robespierre, Lenin, science fiction, love, desire, not-all, Columbo, temporal paradox, retroactivity, wave particle duality and Heisenberg’s principle of uncertainty. Public open lecture for the students and faculty of the European Graduate School EGS Media and Communication Studies department program Saas-Fee Switzerland Europe

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ZIZ053 The Buddhist Ethic and the Spirit of Global Capitalism (2012)

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Slavoj Žižek discusses Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki, Western Buddhism, the West, capitalism, science, ideology, cognitive neuroscience, psychology, psychoanalysis, bodhisattva, samsara, enlightenment, kharma, nirvana, war, Thomas Metzinger, free will, Benjamin Libet, Martin Heidegger, Patricia and Paul Churchland, and The Lion King. Public open lecture for the students and faculty of the European Graduate School EGS Media and Communication Studies department program Saas-Fee Switzerland

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ZIZ052 On Melancholy (2012)

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Slavoj Žižek talking about melancholy as the loss of the object cause of desire. In this lecture Slavoj Žižek discusses the zero level of dialectics, the death of God, Christianity, the symbolic order and the Freudian distinction between mourning and melancholy in relationship to Jacques Lacan, Karl Marx, Alenka Zupančič, Mladen Dolar, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, Judith Butler, Daniel Dennett, Gilles Deleuze and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel focusing on lamella, suture, big Other, commodity fetishism, fantasy, object a, desire, death drive and the unconscious. Public open lecture for the students and faculty of the European Graduate School EGS Media and Communication Studies department program Saas-Fee Switzerland Europe

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ZIZ050 Communist Absconditus (2012)

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Slavoj Žižek talking about the European debt crisis, the revolutions of 2011, and where things stand now. In this lecture Slavoj Žižek discusses the concepts of exploitation, unemployment, the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street in relationship to Yanis Varoufakis’s “Global Minotaur,” Keynesianism, deficits, Paul Volker, Fredric Jameson, surplus value, recognition, T.J. Clark, Basic Income, Philippe van Parijs, Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri, Alain Badiou, Walter Benjamin, Karl Marx, Hegel focusing on Blaise Pascal, miracles, Deus Absconditus, Julian Assange, Kant, partial objects, contractual relationships and Adam Kotsko. Public open lecture for the students and faculty of the European Graduate School EGS Media and Communication Studies department program Saas-Fee Switzerland Europe

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ZIZ049 The Function of Fantasy in the Lacanian Real (2012)

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Slavoj Žižek talking about the transcendental constitution of reality. In this lecture Slavoj Žižek discusses the logic of dreams in Freud, subjectivity, how real sex functions against fantasy, ethical certainty, temporal delay in the act of psychoanalysis and Badiou’s concept of decision and forcing the real in relationship to Jacques Lacan, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Sigmund Freud, Alain Badiou, David Lynch, Roland Barthes and Jean-Pierre Melville focusing on the neighbor, censorship, prohibition, sexual non-relation, big Other, trauma, libido, pornography and love. Public open lecture for the students and faculty of the European Graduate School EGS Media and Communication Studies department program Saas-Fee Switzerland Europe

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ZIZ048 Object a and the Function of Ideology (2012)

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Slavoj Žižek talking about the structure of belief and the mediation of desire. In this lecture Slavoj Žižek discusses his polemic with Badiou on the notion of subtraction as a political and philosophical category, object a as cause of desire, the event, inconsistency in the symbolic order and the function of the master signifier in relationship to Jacques Lacan, Alain Badiou, Karl Marx, Michel Foucault, Jacques Rancière and Charles Darwin focusing on singular universality, the supernumerary element, Zapatistas, evolution, minimal difference, the point, ecology, nature, love, and generic sets. Public open lecture for the students and faculty of the European Graduate School EGS Media and Communication Studies department program Saas-Fee Switzerland Europe

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ZIZ047 Being and Subjectivity: Act and Evental Enthusiasm (2012)

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Slavoj Žižek in a friendly debate with students on ontology and politics in relation to Alain Badiou’s philosophy. In this lecture Slavoj Žižek discusses the status of the subject, transcendental phenomenal existence, the difference between act and Event, the necessity of terror, Christianity, Saint Paul, inconsistency of the big Other, the communist hypothesis and political nomination in relationship to Jacques Lacan, Alain Badiou, Alenka Zupančič, Mladen Dolar, Sigmund Freud, Gilles Deleuze, Immanuel Kant, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Jacques Alain Miller, Bruno Bosteels, Ernesto Laclau, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Judith Butler focusing on truth, void, multiplicity, immanent Two, phallus, inexistence, the barred One, object a, le point, Hegelian essence, anxiety, political enthusiasm, master signifier, love and fidelity. Public open lecture for the students and faculty of the European Graduate School EGS Media and Communication Studies department program Saas-Fee Switzerland Europe

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ZIZ046 Lacanian Theology and Buddhism (2012)

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Slavoj Žižek talking about Lacanian theology in relation to Christianity and Buddhism. In this lecture Slavoj Žižek discusses the Kantian sublime in opera and film, the spectral texture of narrative, the mediation of desire, the Freudian unconscious, the fall in Christianity and Badiou’s conception of the event of love in relationship to Jacques Lacan, Joan Copjec, Immanuel Kant, Richard Wagner, Alain Badiou, Gioacchino Rossini, Gilles Deleuze, G.K. Chesterton, Martin Luther, Sigmund Freud, Franz Kafka, Soren Kierkegaard, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Plato focusing on the Lacanian formulas of sexuation, Tristan and Isolde, object a, Christian prohibition, Catholic propaganda, enjoyment, infinite judgment, lamella, the undead, death drive, immortality, logic of envy, capitalism, anamnesis, objective appearance, truth. Public open lecture for the students and faculty of the European Graduate School EGS Media and Communication Studies department program Saas-Fee Switzerland Europe

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ZIZ045 The Big Other and The Event of Subjectivity (2012)

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Slavoj Žižek talking about the big Other in Lacan in relation to Alain Badiou’s theory of the Event. In this lecture Slavoj Žižek discusses the universality of anxiety, Lacan’s theory of truth and subjectivity, the inconsistency of the symbolic structure and his polemic with Badiou in relationship to Jacques Lacan, Alain Badiou, Sigmund Freud, René Descartes, Jacques-Alain Miller, Antonio Hardt and Michael Negri focusing on being, truth, the real, language, knowledge, the existence of animal life, death drive, transposed belief, the figure of the neighbor, terror, political enthusiasm and capitalism. Public open lecture for the students and faculty of the European Graduate School EGS Media and Communication Studies department program Saas-Fee Switzerland Europe

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ZIZ044 The Irony of Buddhism (2012)

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Slavoj Žižek talking about the truth and irony of Buddhism. In this lecture Slavoj Žižek discusses Badiou’s conception of the Event and supernumerary element, the universality of truth, the paradox of inactivity, the temporality of analysis, American ideology, the problem of bodhisattva, politics of sacrifice and the gap between ethics and enlightenment in relationship to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Ayn Rand, Jean Pierre Dupuy, Alain Badiou, Karl Marx, Jacques-Alain Miller, Jacques Lacan, George Orwell, Theodor Adorno and Adam Kotsko focusing on retroactivity, the symptomal point, freedom of choice, capitalism, Stalinism, the Dali Lama, suffering, reincarnation, nirvana and Mahayana. Public open lecture for the students and faculty of the European Graduate School EGS Media and Communication Studies department program Saas-Fee Switzerland Europe

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ZIZ041 The Empowerment of the Right and the Dissolution of the Left (05.11.2011)

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Slavoj Zizek was one of the speakers at the The empowerment of the Right, the dissolution of the Left event. The public sector is facing severe economy measures. The budgets for culture, education and health care are being cut. The measures are implemented by the political right. The political left, in this period of turmoil, does not seem to be able or willing to meet force with force and turn the tide. Has the left become unsettled? Does the binary division between left and right still apply to read the current political developments and state of flux? Can the left reinvent itself and find an answer to the spreading attitude of rigidity and xenophobia?
Recorded on the 5th of November, 2011 at Jan van Eyck Academy, Maastricht

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ZIZ039 Great Minds (01.07.2011)

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Modern radical thinker Slavoj Žižek spoke on the 1st July as part of the ‘Great Minds’ series, and affirmed his status as a great mind of modern philosophy and social, cultural and political theory. Starbucks, social solidarity and self-commodification were among the varied and enlightening topics touched upon by Žižek, all grounded by his interpretation of ideology and its continuing importance

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ZIZ037 The Idea of Communism and its Actuality (23.03.2011)

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Part 1 of the Masterclass 23, 25 & 26.03.2016
While the global political and social situation is getting more and more explosive, emancipatory struggles are more and more hampered by ideological prejudices. This is why some ruthless clarifications are necessary.
introduction by Costas Douzinas

Birkbeck, University of London

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ZIZ024 Utopias (15.06.2009)

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Masterclass – day 1 – Notes Towards a Definition of Communist Culture: Utopias

The master class analyses phenomena of modern thought and culture with the intention to discern elements of possible Communist culture. It moves at two levels: first, it interprets some cultural phenomena as failures to imagine or enact a Communist culture; second, it explores attempts at imagining how a Communist culture could look, from Wagner’s Ring to Kafka’s and Beckett’s short stories and contemporary science fiction novels

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ZIZ020 The Ambiguity of Obscenity (2009)

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Slavoj Žižek speaking about the production of the couple in Hollywood films, focusing initially on the film Titanic, in a careful analysis of the films narration to examine the theme of an occlusion by catastrophe of catastrophe. Slavoj Žižek lecturing about ideology in cinema, discussing surplus enjoyment, Titanic, triumph of authentic love, catastrophe occurring as a blessing, the Prague spring of 1968, incest, Alan Turing, the film Casablanca, the simultaneity of narrative threads in contemporary cinema. He used these subjects to launch a discussion on the ambiguity of obscenity, on the horror of the carnival and the comedy of tragedy. Public open lecture for the students and faculty of the European Graduate School EGS Media and Communication Studies department program Saas-Fee Switzerland

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ZIZ019 Anti-Semitism, Anti-Semite and Jew (2009)

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Slavoj Zizek confronting anti-semitism, zionism, Israel, jews, and Palestine, using, and in contrast to, the works of Jacques Lacan, Alain Baidou, Karl Marx, and Alfred Hitchcock amongst others, in a lecture at the European Graduate School, or EGS, in Saas Fee, Switzerland. Public open lecture for the students and faculty of the European Graduate School EGS Media and Communication Studies department program Saas-Fee Switzerland Europe

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ZIZ018 Confronting Humanity & The Post-Modern (2009)

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Slavoj Žižek discussing Hegel in reference to Charlie Chaplins The Great Dictator, Leni Riefenstahl, fascism, the Nazi propaganda film Kolberg, Alfred Hitchcocks Vertigo, objectivity in film. He also spoke about Peter Sloterdijk and Jürgen Habermas as well as ethics, dignity, military technology, pharmonarcoleptic drugs, scientology and Ron Hubbard. Public open lecture for the students and faculty of the European Graduate School EGS Media and Communication Studies department program Saas-Fee, Switzerland

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ZIZ017 The Interaction with the Other in Hegel (2009)

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Slavoj Žižek discussing the process of the event in relation to Alain Baidou. Slavoj Žižek speaking about consciousness, neurobiology, awareness, David Chalmers, Daniel Dennett, the Ptolemization of string theory, Catherine Malabou, Jacques Derrida, sublation, difference of organic evolution and the dialectical process, commodity, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, the totality of classification, the overcoming of metaphysics and concepts of duality. Slavoj Žižek lecturing about Nietzsche, Wolfgang Schirmacher and Avital Ronell and paraconsistent logic. Public open lecture for the students and faculty of the European Graduate School EGS Media and Communication Studies department program Saas-Fee Switzerland

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ZIZ016 The Reflection of Life in Hegel (2009)

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Slavoj Žižek discussing the problem of negation and self reflection of life in Hegel, the logic of desire, Lacans master signifier and the object small a, opera, the masturbatory circle and the sexual act, as opposed to authentic love, Lars von Trier and jouissance of the other, pornography and the point of identification. Slavoj Žižek speaking about the the philosophy by Alain Baidou, referring to a speech by Alain Badiou delivered the previous night on the three types of principle negation. Slavo Žižek lecturing about identity functioning as a void, and the idea of the object in perception, as well as the work of Lynn Margulis, Jacques Lacan, Jurgen Habermas, and Laura Kipnis. Public open lecture for the students and faculty of the European Graduate School EGS Media and Communication Studies department program Saas-Fee Switzerland

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ZIZ015 The Return to Hegel (2009)

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Slavoj Žižek speaking about Hegel and Hegelian concepts of history and historicity, drawing not only on the works of Marxs Grundrisse and Jacques Lacan, but also on opera, Schoenbergs atonal revolution, the experience of impossibility, Freuds death drive, Steven King, Immanuel Kant, Martin Luthers radical revolution, concepts of authenticity and inauthenticity. In addition, Žižek referenced Alain Baidou, Gilles Deleuze, Pascal, Charlie Chaplin and the role of the spectator in The Grand Dictator, the drive to culture and the true satisfaction of the circular movement. Public open lecture for the students and faculty of the European Graduate School EGS Media and Communication Studies department program Saas-Fee Switzerland

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ZIZ013 Left in Dark Times (16.09.2008)

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Slavoj Zizek, author of Violence: Six Sideways Reflections (Picador; July 22, 2008), and Bernard-Henri Levy, author of Left In Dark Times: A Stand Against the New Barbarism (Random House; September 16, 2008) talked about their books on stage with Paul Holdengraber. They debated the parameters of tolerance and the global understanding of human rights. In his book Mr. Zizek examines how violence is perceived and questions whether capitalism and civilization encourage greater violence.

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ZIZ011 Fear Thy Neighbor as Thyself (26.11.2007)

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Zizek addresses perception, identity, and the “other” in an engaging lecture titled Fear Thy Neighbor as Thyself: Antinomies of Tolerant Reason. The lecture takes the audience on an enlightening journey through the perceptions of identity and tolerance.

Hosted by The Institute for Human Sciences at Boston University on November 26, 2007

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ZIZ010 Materialism and Theology (2007)

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Slavoj Zizek lecturing about materialism and theology, Charles Darwin, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and the psychoanalysis of culture and societies. Videolecture focuses on fundamentalism, materialism, theology, atheism, atheists, humanists, humanism, reason, logic, rationality, intelligent design, believe, faith, religion, christian, christianity, islam, fundamentalists, fundamentalism, god, nature, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Public open lecture for the students of the European Graduate School EGS, Media and Communication Studies department program, Saas-Fee, Switzerland, Europe

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ZIZ009 Why Only an Atheist Can Believe (10.11.2006)

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Why Only an Atheist Can Believe: Politics Between Fear and Trembling
Calvin College, Michigan. November 10, 2006
Žižek addresses the complicated relationship between belief, or what we take to be belief, and our desire to see all. The lecture is followed by a brief period of questions and answers.

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ZIZ007 Rules, Race and Mel Gibson (2006)

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Slavoj Zizek talking about the explicit, truth, rules, politics, Mel Gibson, society, race, racism, antisemitism; lecturing and developing a psychoanalysis of culture and societies. Public open lecture for the students of the European Graduate School EGS, Media and Communication Studies department program, Saas-Fee, Switzerland, Europe

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ZIZ005 Plea for Ethical Violence (2004)

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Slavoj Zizek talking about the Plea for ethical violence, the logic of the system, ethical pressure, harassment, violence of power and politics, ideology, religion and law, reproducing through censorship and repression, Emmanuel Lévinas, objectivity, objectification, self expression and courses without titles. Slavoj Zizek in a free public open lecture for the students of the European Graduate School EGS, Media and Communication Studies department program, Saas-Fee, Switzerland, Europe

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ZIZ002 On Belief and Otherness (2002)

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Slavoj Zizek speaking about belief, the other, others radical otherness, respect for otherness, resistance, hatred, intolerance towards wisdom, totalitarian regimes, displacement, multitude and diversity, just action, fighting fascism, preserving humanity by killing the enemy, Alain Badiou, Judith Butler, including references to movies like Unbreakable with Bruce Willis and Shrek. Public open lecture for the students of the European Graduate School EGS, Media and Communication Studies department program, Saas-Fee, Switzerland, Europe

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