In this provocative and original work, Slavoj Zizek takes a look at the question of human agency in a postmodern world. From the sinking of the Titanic to Hitchcock's Rear Window, from the operas of Wagner to science fiction, from Alien to the Jewish Joke, the author's acute analyses explore the ideological fantasies of wholeness and exclusion which make up human society. Zizek takes issue with analysts of the postmodern condition from Habermas to Sloterdijk, showing that the idea of a 'post-ideological' world ignores the fact that 'even if we do not take things seriously, we are still doing them'. Rejecting postmodernism's unified world of surfaces, he traces a line of thought from Hegel to Althusser and Lacan, in which the human subject is split, divided by a deep antagonism which determines social reality and through which ideology operates. Linking key psychoanalytical and philosophical concepts to social phenomena such as totalitarianism and racism, the book explores the political significance of these fantasies of control. In so doing, The Sublime Object of Ideology represents a powerful contribution to a psychoanalytical theory of ideology, as well as offering persuasive interpretations of a number of contemporary cultural formations.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
"a brilliant book.... If Zizek is out of touch with contemporary philosophy, I am the bishop of Ulan Bator.... Pedagogic clarity and a gift for entertainment are two of the many excellences." - Radical Philosophy "Slavoj Zizek, the Giant of Ljubljana,... provides the best intellectual high since Anti-Oedipus" - Voice Literary Supplement
About the Author
Slavoj Zizek hold Doctorates in Philosophy and Psychoanalysis and now researches at the Institute of Sociology, Ljubljana. He is the author of Le plus sublime des hysteriques - Hegel passe; co-author and editor of Tout ce que vous avez toujours voulu savoir sur Lacan, sans jamais oser le demander a Hitchcock.
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More About the Author
"The most dangerous philosopher in the West," (says Adam Kirsch of The New Republic) Slavoj Zizek is a Slovenian philosopher and cultural critic. He is a professor at the European Graduate School, International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, Birkbeck College, University of London, and a senior researcher at the Institute of Sociology, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. His books include "First as Tragedy, Then as Farce;" "Iraq: The Borrowed Kettle;" "In Defense of Lost Causes;" "Living in the End Times;" and many more.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
50 of 54 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
Those who know Zizek's work--and chances are you wouldn't be reading this otherwise--are familiar with the author's striking, off-the-cuff applications of Lacanian psychoanalytic theory to pop culture (e.g., Aliens, Bladerunner, Forrest Gump). While this text also contains numerous examples, it is much more theoretically oriented than "Looking Awry" or "Enjoy Your Symptom!" and as such is perhaps the best place to go if you're wondering if there is really a coherent system beneath Zizek's pyrotechnics. Contained in the book are: a (partial) synthesis of Lacan and Marx; an explication of Lacan's diagram for desire, and an insightful rectification of Hegel's commonly misunderstood dialectics
38 of 43 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Zizek brilliantly combines Lacan and Althusser in his reading of Marx and ideology. Unlike other pompous incomprehensible readings of complicated theorists e.g. Lacan and Althusser, Zizek offers a sharp, shrewd, and most important, a comprehensible text to his readers.
This book is probably the best introduction to the Zizek phenomenon. It is very theoritical, but it also introduces Zizek's famous references to movies and popular culture (Zizekian trademarks) in his attempt to explain complex Lacanian and Althusserian propositions. This is not a book only for those specializing in cultural or critical theory; it is written in a language which is accesible to a wider audience - Zizek turns complicated and highly philosophical ideas into a daily practice exercised by non-specialists too.
The most important and Zizek's greatest achievement is his transition from the Althusserian ideology as reality to fantasy as reality. The idea of reality as an imaginary construct - a human fantasy - is the idea that constantly haunts Zizek's later works. The acknowledgement of of some impossible Real kernel becomes Zizek's most effective tool in his attempts to expose our notion of reality as fantasy.
This book introduces Lacan's cognitive paradigm (Real/Imaginary/Symbolic) and Althusser's structuralist readings of ideology and society into cultural theory as never done before. This book is a must for everyone who has the courage to look into ideas that will shake the foundations of reality as we perceive it. It is in short - groundbreaking.
This book is probably the best introduction to the Zizek phenomenon. It is very theoritical, but it also introduces Zizek's famous references to movies and popular culture (Zizekian trademarks) in his attempt to explain complex Lacanian and Althusserian propositions. This is not a book only for those specializing in cultural or critical theory; it is written in a language which is accesible to a wider audience - Zizek turns complicated and highly philosophical ideas into a daily practice exercised by non-specialists too.
The most important and Zizek's greatest achievement is his transition from the Althusserian ideology as reality to fantasy as reality. The idea of reality as an imaginary construct - a human fantasy - is the idea that constantly haunts Zizek's later works. The acknowledgement of of some impossible Real kernel becomes Zizek's most effective tool in his attempts to expose our notion of reality as fantasy.
This book introduces Lacan's cognitive paradigm (Real/Imaginary/Symbolic) and Althusser's structuralist readings of ideology and society into cultural theory as never done before. This book is a must for everyone who has the courage to look into ideas that will shake the foundations of reality as we perceive it. It is in short - groundbreaking.
17 of 19 people found the following review helpful
By Matheme
Format:Paperback
While it is undoubtedly true that to read most recent critical theorists one wants acquaintance with the philosophical and anti-philosophical canons, Zizek is a different story. This is because he excels at giving coherent and surprisingly entertaining expositions of some of the most difficult thinkers in western thought (especially lacan, hegel, and kant). Reading Zizek will make you want to read these other writers, and Zizek's interpretations are as original as they are accurate, in both cases impeccably so.
The aim of the book is manifold. Among other things it:
1. Rehabilitates Lacan's thinking against charges of obscurantism (sokal, gallop, noel carrol, et al). This is particularly true of the chapters entitled "che vuoi?" (what do you want?) and "you only die twice." The former chapter is a tour du force reading of Lacan's infamous semiotic diagrams on the dialetic of desire (see last chapter of "Ecrits" (short edition)). Improbably, this reading is built up as a response to one of the most "mainstream" debates in all of analytic philosophy: Kripke vs. Searle, anti-deescriptivism v descriptivism. Ultimately the claim is that Lacan represents the Enlightenment ideals more than anyone else today.
2. It challenges the prevailing determinist interpretation of hegel and makes an exceptionally persuasive case that hegel is THE thinker of contingency and indeterminacy and "the opened", so to speak. This is the task the conclusion of the book takes up, starting with a close-reading of the difference between Kant and Hegel's thinking on the sublime. The thing above all in Hegel's legacy is the format of hegel's reasoning, the often misunderstood dialectical triad. Read the last chapter for a definition and application of this mode of logic.
3. Begins by making the case that it was Marx and not Freud who "invented the symptom." Another original and persuasive argument, not to be missed. In edition to a new notion of ideology and how to critique it, this chapter includes one of the best short introductions Freud's theory of dreams I know of.
People often deride Zizek as a "comedian/philosopher" who makes too much light of serious matters (see the new yorker profile of 2003 for such a take). And this book certainly has its share of dirty and/or political jokes. What this view forgets, however, is that while Zizek is perfectly capable of turning serious matters into jokes, it his ability to look awry at the most trivial matters, to take the big Other's jokes seriously, that is perhaps his most enduring quality as a thinker.
The aim of the book is manifold. Among other things it:
1. Rehabilitates Lacan's thinking against charges of obscurantism (sokal, gallop, noel carrol, et al). This is particularly true of the chapters entitled "che vuoi?" (what do you want?) and "you only die twice." The former chapter is a tour du force reading of Lacan's infamous semiotic diagrams on the dialetic of desire (see last chapter of "Ecrits" (short edition)). Improbably, this reading is built up as a response to one of the most "mainstream" debates in all of analytic philosophy: Kripke vs. Searle, anti-deescriptivism v descriptivism. Ultimately the claim is that Lacan represents the Enlightenment ideals more than anyone else today.
2. It challenges the prevailing determinist interpretation of hegel and makes an exceptionally persuasive case that hegel is THE thinker of contingency and indeterminacy and "the opened", so to speak. This is the task the conclusion of the book takes up, starting with a close-reading of the difference between Kant and Hegel's thinking on the sublime. The thing above all in Hegel's legacy is the format of hegel's reasoning, the often misunderstood dialectical triad. Read the last chapter for a definition and application of this mode of logic.
3. Begins by making the case that it was Marx and not Freud who "invented the symptom." Another original and persuasive argument, not to be missed. In edition to a new notion of ideology and how to critique it, this chapter includes one of the best short introductions Freud's theory of dreams I know of.
People often deride Zizek as a "comedian/philosopher" who makes too much light of serious matters (see the new yorker profile of 2003 for such a take). And this book certainly has its share of dirty and/or political jokes. What this view forgets, however, is that while Zizek is perfectly capable of turning serious matters into jokes, it his ability to look awry at the most trivial matters, to take the big Other's jokes seriously, that is perhaps his most enduring quality as a thinker.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Zizek and "(Post-)Structuralism": "Where is the Beef?"
The back cover of my 1989 Verso paperback edition of the Sublime Object of Ideology announces (see post-script) that "Zizek takes issue with analysts of the postmodern condition... Read more
Published 15 months ago by Jean Nezmars
4.0 out of 5 stars
Zizek Before Zizek
The Sublime Object of Ideology, Zizek's first book in English, has been republished in The Essential Zizek collection at Verso. Read more
Published on April 28, 2010 by Etienne ROLLAND-PIEGUE
1.0 out of 5 stars
All of the philosophers hated this book.
I read this book in an inter-disciplinary reading group (folks from Philosophy, English, Political Science, Psychology, and others). Read more
Published on July 21, 2009 by Brian
5.0 out of 5 stars
A True First Step
"The Sublime Object of Ideology" is perhaps the best introduction to the Zizek-Lacan line of thought in social psychology and psychoanalysis. Read more
Published on June 24, 2005 by Lucretius Borges
4.0 out of 5 stars
Invigorating, diaphanous, decentered
Anyone thinking about reading this book ought first to have acquainted themself with the psychoanalytic theories of Jacques Lacan and the philosophy of Hegel. Read more
Published on January 20, 2004 by Dallas Jones
4.0 out of 5 stars
Making Ideology fun
I thought this was a fantastic book. I've read it several times and has allowed me to develop a new more contemporary understanding of ideology as well as gain a stronger grasp of... Read more
Published on August 28, 2002
5.0 out of 5 stars
a must read
a must read for any intellectual, interested in theoreticians following Lacan's writing.
Published on November 30, 2001
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