Customer Reviews

The Zizek Reader (Blackwell Readers)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The collection is very interesting, in that one gets a sense of Zizek's theoretical perspective and methodological tendencies across a range of texts. It also forces one to reconsider Lacan's work. Unfortunately, the book itself is riddled with typographical errors. The publisher should be thoroughly embarrassed by this.

In his preface and his original contributions to the selections in this reader, Zizek offers a clearer statement of his position [and of his interpretation of the later writings of Lacan] than in any of his other books. His voice is one which one must engage in dialogue if one is to both appropriate Marxism, psychoanalytic theory and post-structuralism and then move beyond them. He acknowledges post-structualism's accent on contingencies and the limitations of human conceptualization and theorizing while also accenting the irreplaceable roles that imagination, fantasy and idology play in our psycic and social lives. He accents the need to critique ideology and to work through our fantasies so that one can non-reductively acknowledge the uniqueness of ourselves and what we encounter and the ejoyments present in such encounters. He writes so that one can see in the antagonisms present in current forms of neo-capitalism, sexism and racism the grounds for hoping for worthwhile accomplishments in seeking to lessen the domination and oppression they are causing. This reader provides an excellent beginning point for thinkers who want to join cultural and psychoanalytic analyses in a project of social action, and who along the way want to enjoy Zizek's marvelous use of film and literature to exemplify his theoretical points. A must reading for serious students of the current social and cultural world.

Slavoj Zizek, one of the greatest minds of the late 20th century, is well repersented in this excellent collection of essays. His points of view on everything (women, philosophy, and culture) come through loud and clear. The integration of psychoanalytic, marxist, poststructural, and postmodern critiques is refreshing and his treatment of Lacan through examples from pop culture is particuraly wonderful as it aids those that are new to the subject matter (great teaching tool!). A must read for anyone that wants to get a closer look at the spectre of today's somewhat frightening culture.

It seems that time and time again when I happen to come across certain reviews, such as the one particular review here which was a scathing attack on this author and the text, I just roll my eyes in exasperation and do nothing about it. Well this was the last time! Slavoj Zizek is a shinning light in the world of critical academic discourse and is regarded by his peers and academics the world over (even those who don't agree with him)as being incredibly intelligent and very creative. If the text doesn't "mean" anything to you and it seems like an incomprehensible mess then i suggest you stick to material that is more in your league. Please remember that a layperson doesn't read a medical journal on oncology for the fun of it, nor does he/she spend hours deep in Fundamentals of Corporate Finance. A medical doctor who specializes in the treatment of cancer will probably read the former and an MBA or PHD business or accounting guru the latter. Therefore just because you can speak and read English please don't mistake this for a license to read, comprehend and comment on this type of academic text. To be perfectly honest this text is for someone with at least a graduate background in English Lit, Philosophy, Media Studies, Cultural studies etc. To actually comment with some authority on the text you should at least have a post-graduate degree such as a Masters or Doctorate. To put my argument in perspective; you wouldn't read a text on oncology and surgical procedures and comment on it unless you were a medical doctor and even more so, an oncologist. I think the person who would attack this kind of text would do likewise with Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard, Spivak....ohhhh jeez!!! imagine the field day they would have with Heidegger's "Being and Time".

Incapable of exact thinking, steeped in the pseudoscientific orthodoxy of psychoanalysis, destroying the sane foundations of leftist argumentation and superfluously verbose beyond intelligibility, Zizek and his predecessor Lacan inexplicably continue to receive the attention of academics in the humanities. Other reviewers who have stamped this as a collection of technical works have simply been confused by the proliferation of referentially bankrupt verbiage with which every page is splattered: all of the "key notions" of this "thinker" are bereft of sense, are cognitively vacant. Put to the task, I have no doubt that Zizek couldn't even explain what he is referring to when he uses such curiously impossible phrases as, to make a random selection, "the medium of pure auto-affection embodying the presence-to-itself of the speaking subject." This tradition of trying to appear insightful by using arcane neologisms which, mysteriously, are too profound to be defined began with Heidegger and never seemed to stop in continental philosophy, which is precisely why neither Heidegger, nor Sartre, nor Foucault, nor Lacan, nor Derrida, nor Baudrillard, nor Lyotard, nor Deleuze, nor Zizek himself will be remembered seriously by future historians of ideas. There just aren't any ideas to record, only the flickerings of dim bulbs wishing to receive the deserved esteem of Hume or Kant, Russell or Wittgenstein, Kripke or Putnam. Incredibly, dissertations will be written on Zizek by intelligent individuals who, suffering from the mental analogue of an optical illusion, are duped into believing that they are studying something with content, something having an intelligible bearing on at least something familiar (nescio quid!). Entire courses will be taught on Zizek that begin with antiquated, unconfirmable Freudian conjectures and end with many an ostensibly sophisticated but vacuous flatus vocis and innumerable paradoxical conclusions that appear to undermine the assumptions of antecedent traditions but in a way which somehow resists paraphrase into lucid language. But this won't last. For your own sake, avoid Zizek and all of his antecedents in the continental tradition: staring at a wall for years will furnish more genuine intellectual substance than trying to make sense out of this sticky imbroglio of confusions. Instead, if you want to read philosophical works that will warrant the lasting attention of level-headed, mindful individuals, start reading Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, J. L. Austin, C. D. Broad, Carl Hempel, Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, D. M. Armstrong, David Lewis, Noam Chomsky, J. J. C. Smart, W. v. O. Quine, John Searle, Michael Dummett, Saul Kripke, Evan Fales or Hilary Putnam. Relinquish the temptation to be hoodwinked by the trendy maundering of continental clowns. Or, if you prefer, go ahead and read Zizek to learn how not to write philosophy in the same way in which you would read a romance novel to learn how not to write a serious literary opus.

The Zizek's Reader is a book written by the author himself by the publishing house where he is the editor. A very nice way of publishing books and making yourself a celebrity! As far as the content is concerned, Zizek is not disappointing: you get the usual dose of stupid associations, a bricolage of non-sense with another non-sense in a hope to get some sense of it. Absolutely worthless buying!