Žižek And So On

This week, we speak to Ben Burgis, professor at Georgia State Perimeter College and author (and co-author) of recent Zero Books publications "Give Them an Argument" and "Myth and Mayhem". Our discussion ranges from the Žižek v. Jordan Peterson debate, to the state of the Left (after its recent social democratic failures), the difference between formal and dialectical logic, and many other topics. patreon: https://www.patreon.com/zizekandsoon

On this patreon-exclusive episode we discuss Žižek's eurocentrism. For Žižek, Eurocentrism isn't to be understood as a nationalist idea, but instead as an opening for truly universal political and philosophical horizons. In this excerpt from our Patreon exclusive episode, the fellas discuss Eurocentrism and multiculturalism; and how a return to 'authentic tradition' is an effect of, rather than a challenge to, the capitalist economic system.  Join our Patreon for full access to this and other episodes.  https://www.patreon.com/zizekandsoon

Patreon-exclusive content @ https://www.patreon.com/zizekandsoon On this episode, we talk about Žižek's intro to Lenin 2017, as well as his 2009 book First as Tragedy, Then as Farce. Our discussion focuses on the idea of communism, especially as it relates to Žižek's Lenin, as well as the included and the excluded, resistance and working through, socialism/communism, the universal and the particular, and some fucked up dreams. 

Check out our patreon page for extra content: https://www.patreon.com/join/zizekandsoon On this episode, we talk to German philosopher Frank Ruda, senior lecturer in philosophy at the University of Dundee in Scotland. Dr. Ruda is the author of a number of books, including Hegel’s Rabble, The Dash, and, the focus of today’s episode, Reading Marx—co-written with Slavoj Žižek, and Agon Hamza. We discuss Frank’s essay in the book “Marx in the Cave”—a short circuit between Plato’s myth of the cave, and Marx’s analysis of political economy. We touch on a range of topics, including the concept of an “experimental” reading of Marx, the links between emancipation and myth, Plato’s cave allegory as a depiction of the worker under capitalism, as well as the role of appearance and abstraction in understanding capitalism, the dynamics between the worker and time and freedom, the worker (un)animal, and the subject supposed to revolutionize.

On this patreon-exclusive episode, we talk about Žižek's June 22nd article "POWER, APPEARANCE, AND OBSCENITY". We touch on the topics of populism, political correctness, covid, the current protests, and object oriented ontology. To hear the full episode and to hear more content, check out our patreon: https://www.patreon.com/zizekandsoon Here's the link to the article: https://thephilosophicalsalon.com/power-appearance-and-obscenity-five-reflections/

This week, we speak to Dr. Russell Sbriglia, Assistant Professor and Director of Undergraduate Literature Studies at Seton Hall University. Our conversation orients around his new collection, “Subject Lessons”, edited with Slavoj Žižek. We talk Žižek, Hegel, subjectivity, and the “Ljubljana School’s” critique of New Materialism and Object Oriented Ontology.

This week’s episode of Žižek and So On, includes an interview with Slavoj himself, conducted on February 1st of this year. In the interview Žižek parses out what he calls the “post-modern deadlock.” This theoretical and political impasse, specific to the epoch of post modernism, is the product of a tension between what he identifies as the broad realist approach and the transcendental. In exploring this deadlock, Žižek speaks about the limits of Marx’s historical materialism, Judith Butler’s gender theory, and Lacanian psychoanalysis, each as separate examples of transhistorical ontology. Beyond this impasse, and in response to the current global situation, Žižek proposes historicizing historicism, in the practice of Hegel, so that we might see the emergence of an immanent, yet entirely new version of utopia, and that in the event of the catastrophic, there is something at work which is both potentially emancipatory, and universal.

A preview of the upcoming episode, a patreon exclusive, where Peter and Jacob discuss their interview with Eliran Bar-El; Žižek’s newest book PAN(DEM)IC; Communism and his role as the “sacrificial intellectual”.

https://www.patreon.com/join/zizekandsoon A preview for our first exclusive patreon content where we talk off the cuff on postmodernism, and upcoming guest Matt McManus' proposal for a thinking of postmodern...conservatism. The episode is our thinking-through topics relating to contemporary politics, postmodern philosophy (is it conservative?), Žižek's universalism, the pretensions of Neil deGrasse Tyson, and much more—in preparation for our conversation with Matt later this week. 

This week on Žižek and So On, the hosts talk the 1989 English publication of The Sublime Object of Ideology. Access to this complicated and great work is gained by way of the book’s title, as it denotes a synthesis of Marx, Lacan, and Hegel that allows Žižek to perform a nuanced analysis of ideology. Our reading of the book discovers in this new form of analysis, a connection between Žižek’s understanding of ideology and the ontological project at hand in his later work.