Comments | substitute: Slavoj Žižek

substitute

Slavoj Žižek

Dec 11, 2010 02:17

I am fascinated by this guy, but a huge mass of shifting, pudding-like terminology defeats me ( Read more... )

philosophy, laminated malignancy, writing, postliteracy, grandmalseizures, toast

Comments 12

springheel_jack December 11 2010, 10:35:47 UTC

I'd say the best introduction to him is stuff he's also written - if you're starting with "The Paralax View" or "Tarrying with the Negative" or that incomprehensible thing he wrote with Judith Butler, the jargon factor is going to be high, but with, say, "Violence," not quite so much, if you ask me. Another possibility is to listen to some of his lectures. If you can decipher his accent, which I find becomes easy after a while, and the speed at which he tends to speak (the coke does that to you, I hear), they can be quite rewarding. I have a few on my pseudoipod - I'll try to remember which I think are particularly good, and accessible, and see if I can't find a link.

For all his claims to systematicity and of having produced a magnum opus that explains his "thing", I'm not convinced he is, in fact, a systematic thinker at all. It's perfectly possible to approach him as a fox, and not a hedgehog.

springheel_jack December 11 2010, 10:37:22 UTC

You'll get replies which say he's not worth it, that he's either a charlatan or a 'rock star' and not a serious thinker, but ignore them.

miss_geek December 11 2010, 10:51:11 UTC

I'm not sure who he is, or what he's done... but he did something with Judith Butler and I kind of adore her so I now have to find it and read it. And My favorite professor was very much influenced by Hegelian, Marxist, and Lacanian texts. Well, and Freud.

I've been looking for new stuff to read! Thanks!

substitute December 11 2010, 10:51:25 UTC

I started on this thought train with some lectures on "Violence" on youtube that Doug Lain linked me to, so I'll look at those again. Thanks for the recommendations!

Thread 5

besskeloid December 11 2010, 12:51:46 UTC

"Flailing in the pudding" can be sung along to "Crawling From the Wreckage".

hep December 11 2010, 17:14:46 UTC

can you really trust a slovenian tho? I MEAN *REALLY*?!?!?! smug bastards! hehe jk jk

besskeloid December 11 2010, 23:08:32 UTC

I trust these Slovenians:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZU7OPRguJ7A

capn_jil December 12 2010, 22:40:17 UTC

CAN WE ALSO TRUST LAIBACH

At least half of it is sophistry llamech December 12 2010, 02:26:11 UTC

...but maybe that's ok in a world where so is everything else?? And maybe that's what poetry is now, so that's not such a bad thing??

Also, what Bobby Isosceles said above.

BUT: in my own jargon-infested gradual school career, I found this quite helpful in understanding the basic gist of this kind of writing, what it comes out of, what assumptions are being made, etc. etc.:

http://www.amazon.com/Continental-Philosophy-Short-Introduction-Introductions/dp/0192853597

HTH!!

capn_jil December 12 2010, 22:39:55 UTC

i just went through reading him and getting bored by him. if you want to bullshit about THE O R Y i would be totally stoked to talk about this shit.

i would not really categorize critical theory as "serious intellectual stuff" but that is like a long, long, dumb, dumb series of thoughts.