Slavoj Žižek, The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology

Kelsey Wood (University of Arkansas at Little Rock)

Ed. by Gerhard P. Knapp, University of Utah
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.5.2.07: French Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Kate Averis (University of Western Australia), Hugo Azerad (University of Cambridge), Patrick ffrench (King's College London), Edward Forman (University of Bristol), Akane Kawakami (Birkbeck, University of London), Siobhán McIlvanney (King's College London), Sinan Richards (King's College London), Tim Unwin (University of Bristol), David Williams (University of Sheffield)

Domains

Political Theory
Psychoanalysis

Dates

First circulation or publication 1999

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Commentary / criticism

Resources

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Zizek has almost single-handedly revived a dynamically dialectical, Hegelian style of thinking. I think of him as a sort of “logician of culture” who reveals the underlying structures of politics and ideology in much the way Kant did. (Eric Santner, University of Chicago)

“A spectre is haunting Western academia [...] the spectre of the Cartesian subject.” So begins Slavoj Zizek's The Ticklish Subject: the Absent Centre of Political Ontology (1999). The author, both a psychoanalyst and a dialectical materialist philosopher, is one of today's most important and innovative thinkers. He is best known as an interpreter of contemporary culture in light of the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan; however, his unique fusion of psychoanalytic theory and philosophy accomplishes much

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2690 words

Citation: Wood, Kelsey. "The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 19 January 2008 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=23099, accessed 23 November 2024.]