"a brilliant book.... If Zizek is out of touch with contemporary philosophy, I am the bishop of Ulan Bator.... Pedagogic clarity and a gift for entertainment are two of the many excellences." - Radical Philosophy "Slavoj Zizek, the Giant of Ljubljana,... provides the best intellectual high since Anti-Oedipus" - Voice Literary Supplement

Book Description

In this provocative and original work, Slavoj Zizek takes a look at the question of human agency in a postmodern world. From the sinking of the Titanic to Hitchcock's Rear Window, from the operas of Wagner to science fiction, from Alien to the Jewish Joke, the author's acute analyses explore the ideological fantasies of wholeness and exclusion which make up human society. Zizek takes issue with analysts of the postmodern condition from Habermas to Sloterdijk, showing that the idea of a 'post-ideological' world ignores the fact that 'even if we do not take things seriously, we are still doing them'. Rejecting postmodernism's unified world of surfaces, he traces a line of thought from Hegel to Althusser and Lacan, in which the human subject is split, divided by a deep antagonism which determines social reality and through which ideology operates. Linking key psychoanalytical and philosophical concepts to social phenomena such as totalitarianism and racism, the book explores the political significance of these fantasies of control. In so doing, The Sublime Object of Ideology represents a powerful contribution to a psychoanalytical theory of ideology, as well as offering persuasive interpretations of a number of contemporary cultural formations.

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4.6 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)

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4.0 out of 5 stars Zizek's most sustained argument, July 24 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Sublime Object Of Ideology (Paperback)

Those who know Zizek's work--and chances are you wouldn't be reading this otherwise--are familiar with the author's striking, off-the-cuff applications of Lacanian psychoanalytic theory to pop culture (e.g., Aliens, Bladerunner, Forrest Gump). While this text also contains numerous examples, it is much more theoretically oriented than "Looking Awry" or "Enjoy Your Symptom!" and as such is perhaps the best place to go if you're wondering if there is really a coherent system beneath Zizek's pyrotechnics. Contained in the book are: a (partial) synthesis of Lacan and Marx; an explication of Lacan's diagram for desire, and an insightful rectification of Hegel's commonly misunderstood dialectics

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5.0 out of 5 stars Invigorating, diaphanous, decentered, Jan 20 2004

Dallas Jones (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sublime Object Of Ideology (Paperback)

Anyone thinking about reading this book ought first to have acquainted themself with the psychoanalytic theories of Jacques Lacan and the philosophy of Hegel. Zizek's work is far from a stand-alone, sustained, formula for ideological criticism; rather, it is a series of recastings of Marx, Stalin, anti-semitism, etc, through a Lacanian-Hegelian looking-glass.

That said, the book provides an invigorating handle on the notion of the Lacanian subject, the Real, and the Symbolic, as well as Hegelian dialectics (Zizek's "return to Hegel") as they apply to ideology.

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4.0 out of 5 stars Making Ideology fun, Aug 28 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Sublime Object Of Ideology (Paperback)

I thought this was a fantastic book. I've read it several times and has allowed me to develop a new more contemporary understanding of ideology as well as gain a stronger grasp of Lacanian psychoanalytic concepts. I feel that this is definately Zizek's best work.

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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars a must read
a must read for any intellectual, interested in theoreticians following Lacan's writing.

Published on Nov 30 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars Theory doesn't get more entertaining.
As the previous review noted, this is one of Zizek's most systematic works. But it maintains the engaging, entertaining, pop-culture-heavy style of his "lighter" work... Read more

Published on Nov 8 2000