This week on Zizek and So On we spoke with Eliran Bar-El (PhD), researcher at The University of Cambridge for Sociology. We discovered Eliran in reading his article titled “Anti-Anti-Zizek: Public Intellectuals and Global Pandemic” which is his response to the criticism regarding Zizek’s book PAN(D)EMIC!, his most recent work on the COVID-19 crisis. Eliran explains that the style of criticism surrounding Zizek evidences the uniqueness of his public interventions, and with reference to his background in sociology, we explore in conversation the notion that Zizek’s form of dialectic is best described as a kind of performance: that of the sacrificial intellectual.

This week, we spoke to Matt McManus, professor and author of several recent books including: The Rise of Post-modern Conservatism, and, out today, Myth and Mayhem: a Leftist Critique of Jordan Peterson. Matt takes us through his work on postmodern conservatism and the implications of a leftist response through a return to universalist, emancipatory politics.

This week, we spoke to Matt McManus, professor and author of several recent books including: The Rise of Post-modern Conservatism, and, out today, Myth and Mayhem: a Leftist Critique of Jordan Peterson. Matt takes us through his work on postmodern conservatism and the implications of a leftist response through a return to universalist, emancipatory politics.

https://www.patreon.com/join/zizekandsoon

A preview for our first exclusive patreon content where we talk off the cuff on postmodernism, and upcoming guest Matt McManus' proposal for a thinking of postmodern...conservatism. The episode is our thinking-through topics relating to contemporary politics, postmodern philosophy (is it conservative?), Žižek's universalism, the pretensions of Neil deGrasse Tyson, and much more—in preparation for our conversation with Matt later this week. 

This week on Žižek and So On, the hosts talk the 1989 English publication of The Sublime Object of Ideology. Access to this complicated and great work is gained by way of the book’s title, as it denotes a synthesis of Marx, Lacan, and Hegel that allows Žižek to perform a nuanced analysis of ideology. Our reading of the book discovers in this new form of analysis, a connection between Žižek’s understanding of ideology and the ontological project at hand in his later work.

This week, on Zizek and So on, we interview Todd McGowan, professor of English at the University of Vermont. Todd’s thought centralizes on the likes of Hegel, Lacan, Freud and Marx, and he is the author of several books, most notably, “Capitalism and Desire: The Psychic Cost of Free Markets”, and last year's “Emancipation After Hegel: Achieving a Contradictory Revolution.” His newest book “Universality and Identity Politics” is set to come out this July.   

Todd also co-hosts a terrific podcast with Ryan Engley called "Why Theory?" And we encourage you guys to seek it out.  

Todd spoke with us this week about the unity of Hegel and Lacan that is present in both his work and Zizek’s, about post-structuralism, the concept of contradiction, and the problem of the subject.

The second half of our conversation with Slavoj Žižek in which he talks to us about love, jokes, examples, and the meaning of life. 

Our conversation with Slavoj Žižek about his work, and the most pressing questions which are occupying him.