Slavoj Žižek: The Sublime Object of Ideology

Slovene philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Žižek became widely recognized as an important theorist of contemporary times with the publication of ‘The Sublime Object of Ideology‘, his first book to be written in English, in 1989. Since then, he has taken the contemporary philosophical world by storm, as one who is never afraid of confrontation. Žižek’s work, indeed, cannot be categorized easily. He calls for a return to the the Cartesian subject, the idea that there is a split between the mind and body, and that the human is a ‘liberal autonomous subject’. He also calls for a return to ‘The German Ideology’, in particular the works of Hegel, Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Schelling. His work draws much on the works of Jacques Lacan, all the while moving his theory towards modern political and philosophical issues, and miraculously, finding the potential for liberatory politics. Watch.

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Edward Said: The Dutch Interview

The late Edward Said‘s sparkling intelligence shines through in this Interview by Michaël Zeeman for the Dutch television programme ‘Leven en Werken’, VPRO in 2000. Quoting Said “At bottom, the intellectual, in my sense of the word, is neither a pacifier nor a consensus-builder, but someone whose whole being is staked on a critical sense, a sense of being unwilling to accept easy formulas of ready-made clichés, or the smooth, ever-so-accommodating confirmations of what the powerful or conventional have to say and what they do. Not just passively unwillingly, but actively willing to say so in public.” Edward Said remains an inspiration.

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