The Plague of FantasiesSlavoj Zizek is, without doubt, one of the most stimulating and vibrant thinkers of our time, and his idiosyncratic blend of Lacan and Hegel is always sparkling with insight and studded with amusing stories, anecdotes and jokes. In The Plague of Fantasies Zizek approaches another enormous subject with characteristic brio and provocativeness. The current epoch is plagued by fantasms: there is an ever intensifying antagonism between the process of ever greater abstraction of our lives—whether in the form of digitalization or market relations—and the deluge of pseudo-concrete images which surround us. Traditional critical thought would have sought to trace the roots of abstract notions in concrete social reality; but today, the correct procedure is the inverse—from pseudo-concrete imagery to the abstract process which structures our lives. Ranging in his examples from national differences in toilet design to cybersex, and from intellectuals' responses to the Bosnian war to Robert Schumann's music, Zizek explores the relations between fantasy and ideology, the way in which fantasy animates enjoy-ment while protecting against its excesses, the associations of the notion of fetishism with fantasized seduction, and the ways in which digitalization and cyberspace affect the status of subjectivity. To the already initiated, The Plague of Fantasies will be a welcome reminder of why they enjoy Zizek's writing so much. For new readers, it will be the beginning of a long and meaningful relationship. |
Contents
INTRODUCTION | 1 |
The impossible gaze 6 The inherent | 35 |
desublimated neighbour The neighbours ugly voice A frog | 76 |
Moving statues frozen bodies Troppo fisso The violence | 98 |
Cyberspace Or The Unbearable Closure of Being | 127 |
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Common terms and phrases
activity actually ambiguity attitude belief body castration commodity fetishism contingent course crucial cyberspace death desire diabolical Evil dimension discern domain drive effect encounter endeavour enjoyment ethical example excess experience external F.W.J. Schelling fact fantasy fetishism fetishist film function fundamental gaze gesture guise Hegel Hegelian human ideological impossible inherent interpassivity intersubjective involves Jacques Lacan jouissance Kant Kant's Kantian kernel kind Lacan Lacanian Laura Dern libidinal logic Malebranche means melodic line melody modern moral narrative Nazi never nomenklatura notion noumenal object objet petit obscene ontological opposition Other's paradox passive pathological perceived perversion phallus phantasmic phantasmic support political position primordial psychoanalytic pure radical Real reality reference relations relationship repressed ritual scene Schumann screen semblance sexual act signifier simply Slavoj Žižek social Stalinist standard status structure sublime superego symbolic order things transgression traumatic true truth ultimate uncanny universe virtual Wild at Heart woman