European University Institute Library

Incontinence of the void, economico-philosophical spandrels, Slavoj Žižek

eng

Includes bibliographical references and index

index present

non fiction

Incontinence of the void

bibliography

978286396

Slavoj Žižek

Short circuits

economico-philosophical spandrels

If the most interesting theoretical interventions emerge today from the interspaces between fields, then the foremost interspaceman is Slavoj Žižek. In Incontinence of the Void (the title is inspired by a sentence in Samuel Beckett's late masterpiece Ill Seen Ill Said), Zizek explores the empty spaces between philosophy, psychoanalysis, and the critique of political economy. He proceeds from the universal dimension of philosophy to the particular dimension of sexuality to the singular dimension of the critique of political economy. The passage from one dimension to another is immanent: the ontological void is accessible only through the impasses of sexuation and the ongoing prospect of the abolition of sexuality, which is itself opened up by the technoscientific progress of global capitalism, in turn leading to the critique of political economy. Responding to his colleague and fellow Short Circuits author Alenka Zupancic's What Is Sex?, Žižek examines the notion of an excessive element in ontology that gives body to radical negativity, which becomes the antagonism of sexual difference. From the economico-philosophical perspective, Žižek extrapolates from ontological excess to Marxian surplus value to Lacan's surplus enjoyment. In true Žižekian fashion, Incontinence of the Void focuses on eternal topics while detouring freely into contemporary issues from the Internet of Things to Danish TV series.--, Provided by Publisher

Introduction: The use of useless spandrels -- Part one: SOS: Sexuality, ontology, subjectvity (1. The barred one [The real and its vicissitudes ; Why is there nothing rather than something? ; Mechanism as a condition of freedom ; From organism to assemblage ; The in-self ; Appendox: A detour through quantum physics] ; 2. Antimonies of pure sexuation [From Kant to Hegel ; No a without the phallus ; Sexuality, knowledge, and ignorance ; From the barred one to the barred other ; The production of a new signifier ; Appendix: Void and excess in music] ; 3. Toward a unified theory of four discourses and sexual difference [Formulas of sexuation ; The Wellesian larger-than-life ; Figures of Father-Jouissance ; Randian "sujective destitution" ; The unified theory ; Appendix: History and sexual non-relationship] ; 4. Transreal, transhuman, transgender (UPS again ; Anti-Semitism and other Pokémon games ; From bit to it ; lalangue ; Human, post-human ; The transgender deadlock of classification ; Appendix: The post-human disorder]Part two: The belated actuality of Marx's critique of political economy (5. The varieties of surplus [The paradox of Lustgevinn ; Surplus-power ; Surpklus-knowledge and science ; Use value, exchange value, cult value ; Beyond homology] ; 6. [In der Tat: the actuality of fantasy [The intricacies of the Labor Theory of value ; The unconscious structured like a Hegelian speculation ; From speculative notion to speculative capital] ; 7. Capitalist discourses [Can one exit from the capitalist discourse without becoming a saint? ; Capitalist perversion ; Master, hysteric, university, analyst ; Capitalist discourses] ; 8. The politics of alienation and separation [Alienation, constitutive and constituted ; Marx and Lacan ; The politics of separation ; From Kant to Hegekl, politically ; Bringing in the chorus])9. Appendix: Death, life and jealousy in communism (The changing eternity ; Jealousy beyond envy ; Love beyond death ; A materialist conspiracy of truth)