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In defense of lost causes / Slavoj Zizek

By: Material type: TextTextPublication details: London ; New York : Verso, 2009.Edition: Paperback edDescription: 530 p. ; 24 cmISBN:
  • 1844674290 (pbk.)
  • 9781844674299 (pbk.)
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 140 ZIZ
Contents:
Introduction. Causa locuta, Roma finita -- Pt. 1, The state of things. Happiness and torture in the atonal world ; The family myth of ideology ; Radical intellectuals, or, Why Heidegger took the right step (albeit in the wrong direction) in 1933 -- Pt. 2, Lessons from the past. Revolutionary terror from Robespierre to Mao ; Stalinism revisited, or, How Stalin saved the humanity of man ; Why populism is (sometimes) good enough in practice, but not in theory -- Pt. 3, What is to be done? The crisis of determinate negation -- Alain Badiou, or, The violence of subtraction -- Unbehagen in der Natur.
Summary: Is global emancipation a lost cause? Are universal values outdated relics of an earlier age? In the postmodern world, ideologies of all kinds have been cast in doubt. In this combative new work, renowned theoriest Slavoj Žižek takes on the reigning postmodern agenda with a manifesto for several \'lost causes\'.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number Copy number Status Date due Barcode
Standard Loan LSAD Library Main Collection 140 ZIZ (Browse shelf(Opens below)) 1 Available 39002100396960

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

No Marketing Blurb

Originally published: 2008.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 489-518) and index.

Introduction. Causa locuta, Roma finita -- Pt. 1, The state of things. Happiness and torture in the atonal world ; The family myth of ideology ; Radical intellectuals, or, Why Heidegger took the right step (albeit in the wrong direction) in 1933 -- Pt. 2, Lessons from the past. Revolutionary terror from Robespierre to Mao ; Stalinism revisited, or, How Stalin saved the humanity of man ; Why populism is (sometimes) good enough in practice, but not in theory -- Pt. 3, What is to be done? The crisis of determinate negation -- Alain Badiou, or, The violence of subtraction -- Unbehagen in der Natur.

Is global emancipation a lost cause? Are universal values outdated relics of an earlier age? In the postmodern world, ideologies of all kinds have been cast in doubt. In this combative new work, renowned theoriest Slavoj Žižek takes on the reigning postmodern agenda with a manifesto for several \'lost causes\'.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

  • Introduction
  • Part I The State of Things
  • 1 Happiness and Torture in the Atonal World (p. 11)
  • Human, all too human
  • The screen of civility
  • Gift and exchange
  • UlyssesÆ realpolitik
  • The atonal world
  • Serbsky Institute, Malibu
  • Poland as a symptom
  • Happy to torture?
  • 2 The Family Myth of Ideology (p. 52)
  • ôCapitalist realismö
  • The production of the couple in Hollywood...
  • ... and out
  • The real Hollywood left
  • History and family in Frankenstein
  • A letter which did arrive at its destination
  • 3 Radical Intellectuals, or, Why Heidegger Took the Right Step (Albeit in the Wrong Direction) in 1933 (p. 95)
  • Hiding the tree in a forest
  • A domestication of Neitzsche
  • Michel Foucault and the Iranian Event
  • The trouble with Heidegger
  • Ontological difference
  • HeideggerÆs smoking gun?
  • Repetition and the New
  • HeideggerÆs to the drive
  • Heidegger's "divine violence"
  • Part II Lessons from the Past
  • 4 Revolutionary Terror from Robespierre to Mao (p. 157)
  • ôWhat do you want?ö
  • Asserting the inhuman
  • Transubstantiations of Marxism
  • The limits of MaoÆ dialectics
  • Cultural revolution and power
  • 5 Stalinism Revisited, or, How Stalin Saved the Humanity of Man (p. 211)
  • The Stalinist cultural counter-revolution
  • A letter which did not reach its destination (and therby perhaps saved the world)
  • Kremlinology
  • From objective to subjective guilt
  • Shostakovich in Casablanca
  • The Stalinist carnival...
  • ... in the films of Sergei Eisenstein
  • The minimal difference
  • 6 Why Populism Is (Sometimes) Good Enough in Practice, but Not in Theory (p. 264)
  • Good enough in practice...
  • ... but not good enough in theory
  • The ôdeterminig role of the economyö: Marx with Freud
  • Drawing the line
  • The act
  • The Real
  • The vacuity of the politics of jouissance
  • Part III What Is to Be Done?
  • 7 The Crisis of Determinate Negation (p. 337)
  • The humorous superego...
  • ... and its politics of resistance
  • ôGoodbye Mister Resisting Nomadö
  • Negri in Davos
  • Deleuze without Negri
  • Governance and movements
  • 8 Alain Badiou, or, the Violence of Subtraction (p. 381)
  • Materialism, democratic and dialectial
  • Responses to the Event
  • Do we need a new world?
  • The lessons of the Cultural Revolution
  • Which subtraction?
  • Give the dictatorship of the proletariat a chance!
  • 9 Unbehagan in der Natur (p. 420)
  • Beyond Fukuyama
  • From fear to trembling
  • Ecology against nature
  • The uses and misuses of Hiedegger
  • What is to be done?
  • Afterword to the Second Edition: What Is Divine About Divine Violence (p. 463)
  • Notes (p. 489)
  • Index (p. 519)

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Slavoj iek is a Professor at the European Graduate School, International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, University of London, and a senior researcher at the Institute of Sociology, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. He is the author of many books, including The Sublime Object of Ideology and The Ticklish Subject.
Slavoj Zizek is a professor at the European Graduate School, International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, University of London, and a senior researcher at the Institute of Sociology, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. He return to past ideals is needed despite the risks. In the words of Samuel Beckett: "Try again. Fiail again. Fail better."

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