Contingency, Hegemony, Universality: Contemporary Dialogues on the Left [Hardcover]

Judith P. Butler (Author), Slavoj Zizek (Author), Ernesto Laclau (Author), Judith Butler (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1859847579 | ISBN-13: 978-1859847572 | Publication Date: July 2000

In an unusual experiment, three theorists engage in a dialogue on central questions of contemporary philosophy and politics. Their essays, organized as separate contributions that respond to one another, range over the Hegelian legacy in contemporary critical theory, the theoretical dilemmas of multiculturalism, the universalism-versus-particularism debate, the strategies of the Left in a global economy, and the relative merits of post-structuralism and Lacanian psychoanalysis for a critical social theory.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Judith Butler is Maxine Elliot Professor of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Subjects of Desire, Gender Trouble, Bodies that Matter, and The Psychic Life of Power. Ernesto Laclau is Professor of Political Theory at the University of Essex. He is the author of Emancipation(s), New Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time, The Making of Political Identities and, with Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. Slavoj Zizek is Senior Researcher at the Institute for Social Studies in Ljubljana. His books include The Sublime Object of Ideology, Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Lacan (But were Afraid to Ask Hitchcock), The Plague of Fantasies, and The Ticklish Subject.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 300 pages
• Publisher: Verso (July 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1859847579
• ISBN-13: 978-1859847572
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,204,657 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Weird, July 11, 2004

By 

Paul B. "Critic" (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Contingency, Hegemony, Universality: Contemporary Dialogues on the Left (Paperback)

Very strange book--courageous, but disappointing in many ways. Butler tries throughout to get the others to think of gays/lesbians as something more than examples of minorities--they refuse. Laclau's second essay is positively bitchy and contemptuous. Zizek presses the other two to be more active activists and take a more positive political stance--they do not do so, instead noting that he also does not do so. Laclau says he assumed Zizek had a sophisticated political sense when he entered the collaboration but must conclude that he was wrong--Zizek is politically stupid, and Butler is a ranting, raving dyke--or so Laclau implies by referring to her first essay as a "war machine" or something. (She of course does not lower herself by responding.) It's an intersting collaboration in many ways--what I got out of it mainly was a better understanding of hegemony, which seems to me an incredibly powerful concept. But it comes mainly, I gather, from Laclau's earlier work. Butler, I thought, asked some good questions about universality that are ignored throughout the rest of the volume, as are all her remarks about gender, which seem invisible to the others. She writes beautifully at times. Laclau's thinking is incisive and powerful. Zizek seems to flip-flop wantonly on Derrida, and they all bicker constantly about who is and who isn't interpreting Lacan's Real with adequate thoroughness. It's a strangely confused, confusing, and inconclusive book. (The attempt, at the end, to present the failure to conclude anything as a theoretical triumph is a bit hollow.) It shows the state of theory now, I guess--theory is seductive in its power and potential, but three theorists of the Left seem unable to talk to each other. My own view is that theory can underestimate the power of disciplinary barriers. "Theory" seems to me to be nothing if not a way for a rhetorician, an economist, and a psychoanalyst/film critic to talk to each other, but the forces against such collaboration are not to be so easily thwarted, unfortunately. The book is interesting but naive.

28 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential for understanding three important philosophers, October 29, 2000

By 

Bryan Atinsky (Tel-Aviv, Israel) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Contingency, Hegemony, Universality: Contemporary Dialogues on the Left (Paperback)

I don't believe this work is for everyone, for one needs to have a pretty solid background of knowledge already, of the works and theoretics of Butler, Laclau and Zizek...they definitely write with a presumtion that one already knows what is being discussed. However, if you have read their works, or have a solid knowledge of these theoriticians, this book is excellent as a way to understand the similarities and differences between their theories. The book is set up as a debate. The first pages state questions which each of them ask the others and want themselves to deal with. The book is then set up with each writer giving an argument chapter (The order which remains throughout the book is Butler, Laclau, and Zizek), a rebuttal, and then a final summation.

Not only does the book give insight into the differences between these philosophers, who in many ways are trying to deal with much the same questions, but the framework of the discussion forced them to also reiterate aspects of each of their theories in a short and distinct manner that gives the reader more understanding in the end, of their works in general.

39 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not my favorite book, February 21, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Contingency, Hegemony, Universality: Contemporary Dialogues on the Left (Paperback)

I have many criticisms to make about this book, but I will limit myself to the following points. Although Zizek makes an effort to be understood, Laclau and Butler compete for showing who is more obscure and pedantic. In spite all the apparent erudition of the authors, or rather because of it, the issue of hegemony is not well-focused. Certainly Gramsci was quite concerned about providing a philosophical dimension to his social reflection, but Laclau, Butler and, to a lesser extend Zizek, bury the social reflection under tons of excessive philosophical references. The lack of sociological dimension is particularly noticeable regarding Laclau's discussion of contigency. The blending of Kant, Hegel, Lacan, Saussure, to mention the main characters, is simply theoretical over-killing. It will take an article to show how shaky the theoretical connetion between hegemony and universalism is. It is my impression that Gramsci would not recognize his work in this academic potpourri. I bought the book, read carefully from cover to cover, and I strongly dislike it.