Call it the year of dreaming dangerously: 2011 caught the world off guard with a series of shattering events. While protesters in New York, Cairo, London, and Athens took to the streets in pursuit of emancipation, obscure destructive fantasies inspired the world’s racist populists in places as far apart as Hungary and Arizona, achieving a horrific consummation in the actions of mass murderer Anders Breivik.
The subterranean work of dissatisfaction continues. Rage is building, and a new wave of revolts and disturbances will follow. Why? Because the events of 2011 augur a new political reality. These are limited, distorted—sometimes even perverted—fragments of a utopian future lying dormant in the present.
“Such passion, in a man whose work forms a bridge between the minutiae of popular culture and the big abstract problems of existence, is invigorating, entertaining and expanding inquiring minds around the world.”—Daily Telegraph
“A great provocateur and an immensely suggestive and even dashing writer ... Žižek writes with passion and an aphoristic energy that is spellbinding.”—Los Angeles Times
“The thinker of choice for Europe’s young intellectual vanguard.”—Sean O’Hagan, Observer
“Žižek’s ingenious handling of culture, films, philosophy, intellectual history, personal stories, daily politics, combined with a politically incorrect wit (especially in his lectures) is truly enjoyable. This at times overwhelming combination of ideas remains unmatched in the contemporary intellectual scene.”—Christian Lotz, Marx and Philosophy Review of Books
“[Žižek highlights] exciting trends in class-organization, political consciousness, cooperation, and struggle ... [and] frames various victories as ‘signs from the future’ so the necessity of inner subjective engagement with social struggle becomes clear.”—Book News
“His ability to fuse together Martin Heidegger’s ‘fundamental ontology,’ Francis Fukuyama’s ‘end of history’ and Naomi Klein’s ‘shock doctrine’ in order to undermine our liberal and tolerant democratic structures is a practice few intellectuals are capable of.”—Al Jazeera
Slavoj Žižek 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 Living in the End Times, First as Tragedy, Then as Farce, In Defense of Lost Causes, four volumes of the Essential Žižek, and many more.
Call it the year of dreaming dangerously: 2011 caught the world off guard with a series of shattering events. While protesters in New York, Cairo, London, and Athens took to the streets in pursuit of emancipation, obscure destructive fantasies inspired the world’s racist populists in places as far apart as Hungary and Arizona, achieving a horrific consummation in the actions of mass murderer Anders Breivik.
The subterranean work of dissatisfaction continues. Rage is building, and a new wave of revolts and disturbances will follow. Why? Because the events of 2011 augur a new political reality. These are limited, distorted—sometimes even perverted—fragments of a utopian future lying dormant in the present.
Praise
“Such passion, in a man whose work forms a bridge between the minutiae of popular culture and the big abstract problems of existence, is invigorating, entertaining and expanding inquiring minds around the world.”—Daily Telegraph
“A great provocateur and an immensely suggestive and even dashing writer ... Žižek writes with passion and an aphoristic energy that is spellbinding.”—Los Angeles Times
“The thinker of choice for Europe’s young intellectual vanguard.”—Sean O’Hagan, Observer
“Žižek’s ingenious handling of culture, films, philosophy, intellectual history, personal stories, daily politics, combined with a politically incorrect wit (especially in his lectures) is truly enjoyable. This at times overwhelming combination of ideas remains unmatched in the contemporary intellectual scene.”—Christian Lotz, Marx and Philosophy Review of Books
“[Žižek highlights] exciting trends in class-organization, political consciousness, cooperation, and struggle ... [and] frames various victories as ‘signs from the future’ so the necessity of inner subjective engagement with social struggle becomes clear.”—Book News
“His ability to fuse together Martin Heidegger’s ‘fundamental ontology,’ Francis Fukuyama’s ‘end of history’ and Naomi Klein’s ‘shock doctrine’ in order to undermine our liberal and tolerant democratic structures is a practice few intellectuals are capable of.”—Al Jazeera
Author
Slavoj Žižek 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 Living in the End Times, First as Tragedy, Then as Farce, In Defense of Lost Causes, four volumes of the Essential Žižek, and many more.
