Žižek And So On

Alright, welcome back to Žižek & So On. This week we have another interview with the brilliant Adrian Johnston.

LISTEN TO THE FIRST ONE HERE!

We’re talking Adrian’s Munich paper on Quantum History, why Hegel was never a determinist, the open past, Benjamin’s angel of history, technofeudalism vs. the labour theory of value, Dupuy’s enlightened catastrophism, and why history is NOT on our side!

Are we left to choose between a parallactic apple and orange where Žižek picks the apple: quantum physics and mysticism, and Adrian picks the orange: biology and a secular materialism?

Support us on PATREON for all our interviews, exclusive episodes and SHORT SESSIONS!

See you in Paris,

Ž&...

Alright, welcome back to Žižek & So On. As part of our ongoing series on the systematic aspects of Žižek’s thought we are once again talking to the brilliant Adrian Johnston.

We’re talking RoboMarx, AI and the general intellect, why the coming age of leisure is a dangerous myth…and how the technofeudal hypothesis is not pessimistic enough!

Do we need some Cyber Leninism? What is the duty of a public intellectual? What comes after Slavoj Žižek?

PART TWO will be out next on PATREON.

To follow along with all the episodes in this series and to get access to all our interviews, Patreon episodes, and SHORT SESSIONS please support us here!

See you in Paris,

Ž&…

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE HERE!

Alright, welcome back to Žižek & So On. This is another PATREON EPISODE in our ongoing series on the systematic aspects of Žižek’s thought & we’re taking a look at Adrian Johnston’s critique of Slavoj Žižek.

Can you have a materialism without matter? Does a genuine dialectical materialism need a detour through theology and the mystical "Night of the World"? What happens when you try to ground the emergence of subjectivity in the bizarre realities of quantum physics?

Along the way we get into the transcendental ontological parallax, Lenin’s Materialism and Empiriocriticism, the crisis of the disappearing electron, Penrose's microtubules, and why kicking away the theological ladder might be harder than it looks.

Up next we move from the quantum void to the delegation of enjoyment with Robert Pfaller on Interpassivity.

To follow along with all the episodes in this series and to get access to all our interviews, patreon episodes, and SHORT SESSIONS support us here!

See you in Paris or the Urgrund,

Ž&…

Alright, welcome back to Žižek & So On. This week continues our NEW SERIESon the systematic aspects of Žižek’s thought & we’re taking a look at Danny Nobus’s session on Žižek’s reading of Sophocles' Antigone.

Can a revolutionary subject ever be an isolated individual? What happens when an act suspends both public law and private family ties without any guarantees in the Big Other?

Along the way we get into Alenka Zupančič’s reading of Antigone, Bartleby politics, Žižek’s three Brechtian rewrites of the play, the structural role of the chorus, and alternative models of materialist ethics in Paul Claudel’s The Hostage and Agota Kristof’s The Notebook—where taking a bullet for someone you hate might just be the purest ethical gesture available.

What is the dialectic of contingency and necessity in Antigone's double burial? Will we get two crates of Danny’s champagne? How does a groundless act retroactively posit its own presuppositions and transforms into symbolic law?

Make sure to check out Russ Sbriglia’s new album Critique of Pure Desire here!

Up next we move from the tragic act to Žižek’s Quantum History with Adrian Johnston.

See you in Paris,

Ž&…

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE HERE!

Alright, this week we’re back with another SHORT SESSION in our ongoing series exploring the systematic aspects of Slavoj Žižek’s thought, working alongside the European Graduate School's Leading Thinkers course.

Frank Ruda is back on the menu, and this week we’re talking Žižek’s second doctoral dissertation, The Most Sublime Hysteric: Hegel with Lacan. Why do certain contingent historical anomalies arrive "right on time"? We look awry at the bizarre historical phenomena of Kaspar Hauser and the 1898 novella Futility and ask why weren't they just a random bum and a stupid ship?

We also take a look at Hegel’s famous essay Who Thinks Abstractly? to show why Reason isn't Understanding plus something else.

Short sessions, variable length sessions, however you wanna put it, in these episodes we’ll wrap them up because of something that is said, rather than the tyranny of the clock.

See you in Paris,

Ž&...

Alright, welcome back to Žižek & So On. This week continues our NEW SERIES on the systematic aspects of Žižek’s thought & we’re taking a look at the work of philosopher Berta M. Pérez focusing on her essay “The Courage to Hold onto a Paradox”and her book The Dialectical Gaze: Hegel with Žižek.

Why does every apparently coherent order depend on an excluded element?

WTF is the transcendental turn? Along the way we return to some of Žižek’s key examples: Lévi-Strauss’s divided village, Hegel’s monarch as the empty point of decision, & the strange loop of subject and substance.

The European Graduate School are running a Leading Thinkers Course on Slavoj Žižek and I know a lot of our listeners are attending the course which is exciting and a big thanks to all of you who have been reaching out to us over the course of the series so far!

The course runs for ten weeks or so with Frank Ruda, Mladen Dolar, Adrian Johnston, Robert Pfaller, Zahi Zalloua, Dany Nobus, Alenka Zupančič, Berta Perez, and at the end Žižek…on…himself….so we’re going to be doing these episodes alongside the course.

Up next we stay with Žižek’s Hegel, but move from Pérez’s account of the Dialectical Gaze to the early Žižek of The Most Sublime Hysteric with Frank Ruda.

See you in Paris,

Ž&…

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE HERE

Alright, welcome back to Žižek & So On. This week continues our new series on the systematic aspects of Žižek’s thought, & we're bringing you another PATREON SHORT SESSION.

This episode is a special one because we managed to get a copy of Žižek’s Masters Thesis from the early 1970’s which became his second book (Znak, označitelj, pismo) published in 1976.

So once again we begin at the beginning…again, looking at repetition in Zizek’s oeuvre with his initial turn to French structuralism with the help of Mladen Dolar.

We’re talking Žizek’s thesis defence where he had to outline his relationship to Marx, why the split precedes the whole, why animals can’t wear masks, and universal signifiers today.

The European Graduate School are running a Leading Thinkers Course on Slavoj Žižek and I know a lot of our listeners are attending the course which is exciting and a big thanks to all of you who have been reaching out to us over the last few weeks of the course!

The course runs for ten weeks or so with Frank Ruda, Mladen Dolar, Adrian Johnston, Robert Pfaller, Zahi Zalloua, Dany Nobus, Alenka Zupančič, Berta Perez, and at the end Žižek…on…himself….so we’re going to be doing these episodes alongside the course.

Up next is Berta M Perez and her reading of Žiżek and the Dialectical Gaze!

Short sessions, variable length sessions, however you wanna put it, in these episodes we’ll wrap them up because of something that is said, rather than the tyranny of the clock.

See you in Paris,

Ž&…

Alright, welcome back to Žižek & So On, this week continues our NEW SERIES on the systematic aspects of Žižek’s thought as we work through some of his foundational texts together.

To follow along with the series head over to our PATREON where you can listen to all our other interviews, episodes, and SHORT SESSIONS!

In this episode we’re taking a look at Žižek’s work on race, racism, anti-racism, concrete universality, and symbolic suicide through the work of Zahi Zalloua and we’re joined by Tim Bryar and Dimitri.

The European Graduate School are running a Leading Thinkers Course on Žižek with Frank Ruda, Mladen Dolar, Adrian Johnston, Robert Pfaller, Zahi Zalloua, Dany Nobus, Alenka Zupančič, Berta Perez, and at the end Žižek…on…himself….so we’re going to be doing these episodes alongside the course.

Up next we have an episode on some of Žižek’s earliest work from way back in 1968, twenty years before the publication the Sublime Object of Ideology, and his Masters Thesis from 1976 Znak, Označitelj, Pismo which we take a look at with the help of Mladen Dolar.

See you in Paris,

Ž&…

Alright, welcome back to Žižek & So On, this week is the beginning of a NEW SERIES we’re doing on the systematic aspects of Žižek’s thought as we work through some of his foundational texts.

The European Graduate School are running a Leading Thinkers Course on Slavoj Žižek and I know a lot of our listeners are attending the course which is exciting. Thanks to everyone who has reached out recently, we really appreciate it.

For this first episode we’re taking a look back at Žižek’s first book in English, the Sublime Object of Ideology, and Frank Ruda’s lecture on it . We’re joined by Dim and Tim Bryar to work through it with us and we're talking ideology, the curious incident of the Laclau that didn’t preface, the homology between Freud and Marx, and objective illusions.

The course runs for ten weeks or so with Frank Ruda, Mladen Dolar, Adrian Johnston, Robert Pfaller, Zahi Zalloua, Dany Nobus, Alenka Zupančič, Berta Perez, and at the end Žižek…on…himself….so we’re going to be doing these episodes alongside the course.

Up next we have an episode on Zero Point, Zahi Zalloua, and Three Fragments on Suicide as a Political Factor!

See you in Paris,

Ž&…

Alright, today’s episode is part of our SERIES on Žižek’s Quantum History and we’re taking a look at superpositions and enlightened doomsaying.

How does Žižek's work on Quantum Physics relate to his political work? Was Žižek just "wrong" about the pandemic? At the level of factual truth, maybe.

What is Enlightened Doomsaying? To prevent the end, do we have to act as if it has already happened? Does the collapse of the wave function come first? Is history just a "premiere" that retroactively creates its own rehearsals? Why do we fail to prevent catastrophes we already know are coming?

We’re discussing War Communism, the Doomsday Clock, and why "knowing" isn't the same as "believing" through the work of Slavoj Žižek, Agon Hamza, Alenka Zupančič, and Jean-Pierre Dupuy, where subjective truth often requires the form of factual untruth.

Short sessions, variable length sessions, however you wanna put it, in these episodes we’ll wrap them up because of something that is said, rather than the tyranny of the clock.

Up next we’re continuing the series...with some special guests!

See you in Paris,

Ž&...

SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK is back on the show to talk about his new book Quantum History: A New Materialist Philosophy.

We’re talking Quantum Variations, Superposition, Wave Collapse, Catastrophe, & So On.

Thank you to everyone for supporting our project and keeping us going. The series on Quantum History will continue with some more interviews and episodes with some great guests who have been working on all of these things and we’re looking forward to it!

SUPPORT US ON PATREON!

See you in Paris,

Ž&…

Alright, welcome back to Žižek & So On, we’re beginning our new series on Quantum Physics in the work of Slavoj Žižek and for this week we have a SHORT SESSION taking a look at some of the work leading up to Žižek’s Quantum History.

What does it mean for history to progress if every forward movement leaves something broken behind? Can a crushed possibility haunt the present? How does retroactivity work when Žižek is talking about QUANTUM HISTORY, is everything up for grabs?

Where are all the dead birds?

Short sessions, variable length sessions, however you wanna put it, in these episodes we’ll wrap them up because of something that is said, rather than the tyranny of the clock.

Up next we’re talking superpositions…with some special guests!

See you in Paris,
Ž&...

Alright, Tim is stuck in the freezer again and we have TWO NEW EPISODES with good friend of the show and one half of the Why Theory Podcast with Todd McGowan, RYAN ENGLEY.

Head over to PATREON to support the show and get access to all our other interviews, short sessions, and more!

We’re talking canned laughter, the history of television and the aesthetics of television, memory, and forgetting.

LISTEN TO EPISODE ONE HERE!

LISTEN TO EPISODE TWO...HERE!

Up next we have a series of episodes for Žižek’s forthcoming book QUANTUM HISTORY!

See you in Paris,

Ž&…

Alright, welcome back to Žižek & So On, Tim is still away staring at the dot and this week we have PART ONE of our interview with good friend of the show and one half of the Why Theory Podcast with Todd McGowan, Ryan Engley!

We're talking canned laughter, the history of television, the aesthetics of television, memory, and forgetting.

Up next we have some episodes for Žižek’s forthcoming book QUANTUM HISTORY!

See you in Paris,

Ž&…

Alright, this week is PART ONE of our conversation with returning guest and friend of the show MATTHEW FLISFEDER author of Algorithmic Desire toward a New Structuralist Theory of Social Media. and his latest book The Hysterical Sublime: Humanism in the Age of Post-Human Capitalism.

Matt is professor of Rhetoric & Communications at the University of Winnipeg and in this episode we’re talking about Slavoj Žižek’s Eurocentrism, concrete universality in his work, why universality appears from the split within the particular, Žižek’s holographic history (choices-not-chosen and the fantasies they generate), super-anthropocentrism and dialectical humanism, Althusser’s theoretical anti-humanism vs. practical humanism, degrowth vs. building the infrastructures we actually need, and how geoengineering fixes demand global coordination with real legal form and so on and so on.

Stay tuned for PART TWO out next!

See you in Paris,

Ž&…

⁠BUY THE ALBUM HERE! ⁠

Alright, this week we’re drinking the blood from Oedipus’s eyes with returning guest and friend of the show, the great Russell Sbriglia to talk about his new album ⁠Critique of Pure Desire⁠ which, according to Ryan Engley, sounds like if King Crimson were throwing an Eyes Wide Shut party.

The album is a psychedelic mix of philosophy, psychoanalysis, literature, and film through Slavoj Žižek, Lacan, Hegel, Hitchcock, Melville, Antigone, Hamlet, Poe, Blade Runner, Chopin, La Jetée…and even features guest vocals from Žižek himself.

We’re talking the critique of pure desire, the strange logic of retroactivity, failed interpellations, hysterics, the split within the law, and future histories…

Russ is Associate Professor of English at Seton Hall, co-editor with Slavoj of Subject Lessons, editor of Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Literature but Were Afraid to Ask Žižek, and the band Misconstruity.

Big thanks to Russ — and if you’re quick, the first two listeners to email zizekandsoon@gmail.com will get a copy of the album.

And yes, Tim is still away…last I heard he reckoned that he’s being followed by a chorus of old men who keep lamenting his decisions and spoiling the plot of his life…however I want to take this chance to say that Tim’s first book has just been published with Palgrave: A Lacanian-Hegelian Perspective on Peace and Conflict Studies. It’s now out in the world and you should all check it out.

Congrats, Tim.

Extra fish-head soup for you!

⁠GET TIM'S BOOK HERE!⁠

See you in Paris,

Ž&…

Alright, Michael Downs⁠ is with us again and Todd is back to talk more about his new book The Cambridge Introduction to Jacques Lacan.

Listen to PART ONE HERE!

We’re talking why the master signifier and the quilting point shouldn't be used interchangeably, the crucial difference between das Ding and objet petit a, and Lacan's three big missteps with the four discourses, sexuation, and the sinthome.

We get into gambling theory, the "Joy Machine" at airports, Yahoo's gambling origins, whether we're living through a decline of symbolic efficiency or just more superego pressure, and why AI might be the ultimate big other.

Shared fantasy, traversing the fantasy, and the impossibility of the sexual relationship…what does this have to do with Escape (The Piña Colada Song)”?

Support us on ⁠PATREON⁠ for Discord access, extra episodes, and our SHORT SESSIONS series.

See you in Paris,

Ž&...

Alright this week we’re back and joined by Michael Downsto talk with longtime friend of the show Todd McGowan about his brand new book The Cambridge Introduction to Jacques Lacan.

This is a book a lot of us have wanted for a long time!

McGowan's book on Lacan demonstrates yet again how right Lacan was when he insisted that people who are not clinical analysts can also be full members of his school. It's not that we philosophers should learn from clinicians - clinicians can learn from us what they are doing. Finally, someone dared to state openly the obvious truth: like all anti-philosophers from Kant onwards, Lacan is also and foremost a philosopher!

- Slavoj Žižek

Is Lacan a philosopher? Is Lacan a dialectical thinker?

In PART ONE of the interview with Todd we’re talking Lacan’s turn to the nonrelation and the Borromean knot and how it marks a break from his dialectical thought, and why you should skip the Écrits entirely and read the seminars instead.

We trace Lacan’s philosophical project through Kant and Hegel, explore Lacan's theory of the subject, Žižek’s quantum history, the Copenhagen interpretation, and Sean Carroll as a Deleuzean physicist.

Support us on PATREON and get access to our Discord, interviews, extra episodes each month, and our SHORT SESSIONS series for $5/month.⁠⁠⁠

PART TWO of the interview will be out next!

See you in Paris,
Ž&...

Alright this is a PATREON PREVIEW & this week we’re back again with our series on Slavoj Žižek’s Against Progress with PART TWO of the long-awaited conversation with theorist and friend of the show Michael Downs, author of the Dangerous Maybe Blog on Medium and his new book Capital Vs Timenergy: A Žižekian Critique of Nick Land to discuss Žižek’s essay Accelerationism.

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE HERE!

We’re talking Lacan’s theory of language and the co-evolution of the brain and the Big Other, Žižek’s dialectical method, the difference between Land’s and Žižek’s conceptions of the death drive, Cute Accelerationism and so on and so on.

See you in Paris,

Ž&...

Also check out Pods Against Tomorrow hosted by Hugh Manon Professor of Screen Studies at Clark University and Abe Doubleday-Bush where they reinvestigate the noir genre one film at a time. I joined them the other day to discuss Joseph Losey and Dalton Trumbo's down-and-dirty 1951 cult noir, THE PROWLER. Which you can listen to...HERE!

Alright this week we’re continuing our series on Slavoj Žižek’s Against Progress with another long-awaited conversation with theorist and friend of the show Michael Downs, author of the Dangerous Maybe Blog on Mediumand his new book Capital Vs Timenergy: A Žižekian Critique of Nick Land to discuss Žižek’s essay Accelerationism.

Is Žižek an Accelerationist?

In PART ONE of our conversation we’re talking accelerationism and degrowth, all things Nick Land, cyber-positivity, forced choices, the zero point of modernity, and get into the CCRU, cute accelerationism, AI as metaphysical horror, the barred and unbarred Big Other, Providence, techno-Telos, face tentacles, vinyl records, and the Lacanian subject.

⁠⁠Support us on PATREON and get access to our Discord, interviews, extra episodes each month, and our SHORT SESSIONS series for $5/month.⁠⁠

See you in Paris,
Ž&...