On Zizek's Dialectics: Surplus, Subtraction, Sublimation

Description

On Zizek's Dialectics explores the theoretical and practical potential of the psychoanalytic method deployed by Slavoj Zizek by investigating its epistemological implications within our contemporary capitalist universe. The book begins by evaluating Zizek's account of the capitalist ideology of enjoyment through the analysis of Lacan's critique of Marx's surplus-value. If the originality of Zizek's wager lies in the claim that enjoyment secretly sustains our ideological space, can we think of surplus-jouissance in a way that not only unmasks the ruse of capitalism but also adumbrates the construction of an alternative social space? The answer to this question is developed in the second part of the book. Arguing that the transformative potential of Zizek's epistemology needs to be fully unravelled if it is to avoid the risk of congealing into mere academic exercise, Fabio Vighi attempts to politicise Zizek's groundbreaking critical method by calling upon the necessity to translate its emphasis on the "indigestible" surplus of knowledge into the drive to think the new. Under the current conditions, this creative moment can no longer be delayed.

Fabio Vighi is Senior Lecturer and co-director of the A1/2iA3/4ek Centre for Ideology Critique at Cardiff University, UK. He is the author of A1/2iA3/4ek: Beyond Foucault (2007, with Heiko Feldner), Sexual Difference in European Cinema (2008), and On A1/2iA3/4ek's Dialectics: Surplus, Subtraction, Sublimation (2010).

"In the guise of providing a commentary on the political implications of Slavoj Zizek's philosophy, Vighi has made clear the precise contours of the link between theory and practice in an utterly original fashion. His book marks a major milestone in the history of thinking about politics." - Todd McGowan, University of Vermont, USA, author of The Real Gaze: Film Theory After Lacan "After completing Vighi's book on me, I felt a unique mixture of pleasure and anxiety, as if a double is haunting me, understanding me better than I understand myself, and noticing not only what I try to achieve, but also the weak spots in my theoretical edifice. Not to mention the fact that Vighi's book also stands on its own as a supreme example of a dialectical theory of ideology. Anyone who wants to understand how ideology functions in today's "post-ideological" era should follow closely Vighi's work!" - Slavoj Zizek "This is a wonderful book not only on Zizek and his dialectics, but also about what the latter can inspire in terms of a further and most stunning reflection upon real, and really interesting, encounters between psychoanalysis and Marxism as generic name for emancipatory politics." - Alenka Zupancic, Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Slovenia ... accessible and enjoyable. -- New Formations