Žižek And So On (…and so on. )

This week, reading through Rex Butler's 'Slavoj Zizek: Live Theory,' the fellas talk the Master Signifier and Jaws, and somehow devolve into a Lacanian interpretation of Austin Powers. 

Join our Patreon for more eps!

https://www.patreon.com/zizekandsoon

The Book:

https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/slavoj-%C5%BEi%C5%BEek-live-theory-9780826469953/

This week, we're speaking to Alenka Zupančič, author of many texts, including What IS Sex, and Let Them Rot: Antigone’s Parallax. Zupančič. As a member of the "troika" (along with Mladen Dolar and Slavoj Zizek) Alenka is a central figure of the Lacanian-Hegelian Slovenian school we all know and love.    We’re talking the early days of the troika, What IS Sex, the modalities of conspiracy theory, desire, drive, and disavowal.   To listen to the full episode here over to our Patreon. Special thank you to our Patreons and all listeners who have reached out over the last four years asking if we could speak with Alenka.    Enjoy! To support the pod, and to find access to many more episodes, join our PATREON !

For this week's episode the gang discuss Alenka Zupančič’s recent work on freedom-as-a-possibility, repetition, and The End. Jake gets a haircut, Will touches Marx’s chair, it rains in Australia and Pete has a lousy connection. 

To subscribe to this and other patron episodes, and to join our powerful Discord server: click here

This week, the fellas are joined by Jack Black, Senior Lecturer at Centre for Culture, Media and Society, Sheffield Hallam University. Oriented around Jack's new book, 'Race, Racism and Political Correctness in Comedy' (Routledge), we talk 'true' and 'false' comedy, the concrete universal, the Office, and racist jokes. Thanks Jack! Get the book: https://www.routledge.com/Race-Racism-and-Political-Correctness-in-Comedy-A-Psychoanalytic-Exploration/Black/p/book/9780367508937 Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackstblack

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE HERE!

This week, since everyone else is, we're talking Barbie and Oppenheimer. We talk the role of fantasy in ideology, and the culture war as a distraction from class antagonism. Along the way we chat about Indiana Jones, Paul Verhoeven, and Michael's favourite Australian actors.

Thanks for listening!

⁠zizekandsoon⁠

This week on Žižek and So On, the hosts talk the 1989 English publication of The Sublime Object of Ideology. Access to this complicated and great work is gained by way of the book’s title, as it denotes a synthesis of Marx, Lacan, and Hegel that allows Žižek to perform a nuanced analysis of ideology. Our reading of the book discovers in this new form of analysis, a connection between Žižek’s understanding of ideology and the ontological project at hand in his later work.

This week, the fellas discuss two recent articles concerning the ongoing pandemic, “The Will Not to Know,” by Slavoj Zizek, and “Social Distancing and its Discontents,” by Matthew Flisfeder. Using the articles as a starting point, we talk: the idea of “protest,” neoliberal ideology, the disruption of the symbolic order, and how the virus compels us to enjoy in different ways.

"The Will Not to Know,” by Slavoj Zizek 

https://thephilosophicalsalon.com/the... 

“Social Distancing and its Discontents,” by Matthew Flisfeder 

https://thephilosophicalsalon.com/soc... https://matthewflisfeder.com/

become a patron @ https://www.patreon.com/zizekandsoon

LISTEN HERE!

Alright, this is the third episode of our new Patreon series SHORT SESSIONS and we’re taking a look at one of Slavoj Žižek’s most recent Substacks “The Uses & Misuses of Neurotheology”.

We’re talking Out-of-Body experiences, LSD & dolphins, non-consensual encounters with dimethyltryptamine crocodiles, and climate controlled neurological dystopias.

Big thanks to our Patreon @cassandrandranoid for the episode request!

UP NEXT IS THE SECOND EPISODE IN OUR FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE SERIES: BIOGENETICS!

See you in Paris!

In this Patreon exclusive episode & So On discusses the superego and the act. How does Zizek understand authentic action within the context of the symbolic order, capitalism, and the superego injunction to enjoy? How does an act break the symbolic co-ordinance and bring about an Event in subjectivity? Jake, Peter, and Will take a stab at it. 

For access to this exclusive episode and others, go to:

https://www.patreon.com/zizekandsoon

https://zizek.uk/the-superego-and-the-act/

This week, the second half of our conversation with Alenka Zupančič; focusing on the different modalities of conspiracy theory, desire, drive, and her forthcoming work on disavowal.   Special thank you to our Patreons and all listeners who have reached out over the last four years asking if we could speak with Alenka.    To support the pod, and to find access to many more episodes, join our PATREON ! Enjoy!

An excerpt from our most recent patreon-exclusive content. This episode, we take another stab at our failed attempt to talk about Žižek and film. Earlier in the week we spoke to Dr. Matthew Flisfeder, the author of The Symbolic, the Sublime, and Slavoj Žižek's Theory of Film— but we forgot to record the conversation... So, in our second attempt to tackle this crucial topic in Žižek's work, we talk about Matthew's book, as well as "The Pervert's Guide to Cinema", the choice between reality and illusion, the third pill, Hitchcock's MacGuffin, the parallax object, and wonder why film?

Join our patreon @ https://www.patreon.com/zizekandsoon

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE HERE!

Alright, we’re back with another PATREON episode and we’re talking Jacques Derrida, the difference between parallax and différance, How To? with John Wilson, Krzysztof Kieślowski, documentary and fiction cinema, a deconstruction of Smash Mouth’s All Star, and the (w)hole in the picture.

Thank you to all of our Patreons, we have some VERY SPECIAL guests coming up, so stick around.  

Enjoy!

Alright, this week on our PATREON we’re talking Fantasy & reading from Slavoj Žižek’s Plague of Fantasies. It’s coffin pillows, being there at your own conception, roguish reporters, and the most famous blanket in cinema. 

HEAD TO OUR PATREON TO LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE!

PATREON.COM/ZIZEKANDSOON

Next week we have Rafael Winkler on to discuss the new Bloomsbury Reader’s Guide to Žižek’s Sublime Object of Ideology.

Enjoy being dead,

and we’ll see you in Paris.

In this Patreon exclusive episode, we discuss our evolving thoughts on the covid crisis, then turn to a post-op on the Ben Burgis interview. We wonder how formal logic could be given a Hegelian twist, via Todd McGowan's book, "Emancipation After Hegel".

https://www.patreon.com/zizekandsoon

Alright, we’re ⁠Living in the End Times⁠ and this is the FOURTH and FINAL episode in our series on The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, or as Žižek sometimes puts it, the Four Riders of the Apocalypse.

So far in our series we’ve taken a look at the economy focussing on intellectual property, the biogenetic revolution, nature and the ideology of ecology, and today we’ll look at the fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse, the one Žižek locates in the space of the global commons of humanity,  what he describes as the explosive growth of social division or new forms of apartheid, new walls and slums...

Žižek says we are approaching a whole series of critical points, and the question is: can the global liberal democratic system – the capitalist system – deal with them or not?

A special thank you to everyone who has been reaching out to us about this new series, it's been much appreciated!

See you in Paris!

Ž&…

Our new Patreon episode:

A long-overdue topic, for an overdue episode (sorry about that). We're talking jouissance, the contemporary political scene, and the coming winter in Australia. Enjoy!

The reading for this week is Jodi Dean's essay, "Why Žižek for Political Theory?".

Head to zizekandsoon.com or patreon.com/zizekandsoon to access the episode!

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE HERE!

Alright, we’re back for 2025 with a new PATREON episode and while Tim's drinking margaritas on a beach somewhere we’re talking Binocular rivalry, the authorlessness of AI, the Dead Internet Theory, Mr Beast…and what happens when a Rabbi, Businessman, and a poor ordinary Jew talk to God.

This is PART TWO in our series on Mladen Dola’rs Rumors through Zizek's recent comments on psychoanalysis, and the strange logic of knowledge in the age of information overload.

Can we know too much? Is the production of knowledge necessarily good? What’s the difference between rumour and conspiracy? Is it a conspiracy or platform capitalism functioning smoothly?

Thanks to our PATREONS for another year of the show! 

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

See you in Paris,

Ž&…

Alright, the End is Near and this week we're talking with Alenka Zupančič about her latest book Disavowal with Polity Press that came out this week.

In this first installment we're talking serial crisis, the Fire Within the Fire, knowledge, belief, deception, and the indispensability of concrete analysis.

HEAD TO OUR PATREON TO HEAR THE SECOND PART OF OUR INTERVIEW!

See you in Paris.

Enjoy!

This week, the fellas scroll through Zizek's new substack. Tying together three articles, we move from 'tech talk' (Elon Musk, Apple Vision, the profound suffering of microchimpanzees), to a Zizekian theory of sexuality, and finally to the fine art of smoking (and other surplus enjoyments). To stay up to date and access many more episodes, join our Patreon (we'll be speaking to Anna Kornbluh and Mladen Dolar very soon!)

Zizek's Substack articles:

ELON MUSK RUINED MY SEX LIFE

NOTES TOWARDS A HEGELIAN SYSTEM OF SEXUALITY

SMOKING CONSIDERED AS ONE OF THE FINE ARTS

This week, the fellas are back discussing Alenka Zupančič's Problemi essay, 'Lying on the Couch'. How does the psychoanalytic framework allow us to make sense of culture and lying, what is the asymmetry of a truth and a lie, and what did we think of the new Beatles song? Mike is hot (again), Will has moved (again), and Peter kind of liked Killers of the Flower Moon. Enjoy!

For access to many more episodes, check out our ⁠PATREON!⁠ Thank you to all of our Patrons! See you again soon

Patreon Preview - Better late than never, we take on Zizek's 2019 book "The Relevance of the Communist Manifesto''. We discuss how the Manifesto falls short in diagnosing the antagonisms of capitalism in its current iteration, yet also retains its ability to open up a relevant critique of capitalism. The limitations of the text identified by Zizek are problematized by contemporary features of capitalism he insists are crucial for understanding our predicament today—namely, the problem of (the privatization of) the commons, and the failure of the revolutionary subject to present itself.  Also, Foucault is cancelled.

https://www.patreon.com/zizekandsoon

On this week's PATREON EPISODE, the fellas talk the concept of the Beautiful Soul in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, it's political position, and place in Zizek's work. Sartre, Anne Frank, and Neil Young come up too.

For access to the full ep and our Discord community, join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/zizekandsoon

Also, Mike won't shut up about our new website: https://www.zizekandsoon.com/

This week, we take a dive into Žižek's new book: Pandemic! 2: Chronicles of a Time Lost.

Thanks for joining us this year, everybody! See you in 2021—

To hear the full episode and many others, join our patreon @ https://www.patreon.com/zizekandsoon

The boys are back with a discussion on a 2019 interview with Alenka Zupančič in Crisis and Critique. This piece brings us back to thinking through the importance of psychoanalysis for philosophy, and also opens the door to talking about the ontology of sexuality from the Lacano-Hegelian perspective.
article: https://crisiscritique.org/april2019/zupancic.pdf

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE HERE!⁠

That's right, we're talking Godzilla Minus One this week. Also, the fall, the good, Schindler's List, Lacan and his (Hegelian) concept of empty speech, and what's new in the movies. Thanks everyone!Enjoy!

This is a preview of this week's episode. For full access, please think about joining our ⁠Patreon⁠!

Alright, welcome back to Žižek and So On this time we’re talking again with old mate Todd McGowan. This was recorded on Valentines Day 2025 and Tim was busy shopping for eggs.

We’re diving into Todd’s new book Pure Excess: Capitalism and the Commodity to talk inutility and the promise of pure excess in the commodity form. Why can’t we have McDonalds at home? What is capitalism’s magic trick, and where are the dead birds? 

Up next we’ve got an episode dedicated solely to Todd’s book staging a series of examples to explore the theoretical underpinnings of the book. 

SUPPORT THE PODCAST HERE to access our Discord, more interviews, more episodes and our SHORT SESSIONS!

See you in Paris,

Ž&…

Today we're discussing Zizek's 2005 book "Interrogating the Real", and his afterword on Lacanian ethics. 

What does not giving way relative to one's own desire mean? How does Lacan's maxim on desire contrast with Buddhism, and its conception of desire?

Join us on our Discord by subscribing to the Patreon!

We've got ongoing book and film-clubs, and our upcoming reading series with Matt Flisfeder on Žižek's "For They Know Not What They Do", beginning in October. 

https://www.patreon.com/zizekandsoon

This week, we present the third episode in our series of interviews with the Troika — after Slavoj Žižek, and Alenka Zupančič . We’re speaking with Mladen Dolar, Professor and Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Philosophy, at the University of Ljubljana.

Dolar is the co-founder of what has become known as ‘the Ljubljana School’. His principal areas of research are psychoanalysis, modern French philosophy, German Idealism, and art theory. He has lectured extensively at universities in the US and across Europe, and he is the author of over a hundred papers in scholarly journals and volume collections. Apart from ten books in Slovene, his book publications include most notably A Voice and Nothing More and Opera’s Second Death.

We’re talking the voice, May 68, the early days in Ljubljana, Lacan, rumours and gossip, what’s in a name, and the decline of paternal authority.   

For access to many more episodes, join our PATREON!  

Thanks Mladen!

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE HERE!

Welcome back...is it the Same Shit on a Different Day or Different Shit on the Same Day? This is PART TWO of our interview with ALENKA ZUPANČIČ on the undeadness of crisis, adaptation, Boredom, Bartleby Politics, the Right Words at the Right Time, Masters, Żiżek’s Frankfurt Book Fair Speech, Whistleblowers & Julian Assange, and if we can still Handle the Truth!

LISTEN TO PART ONE HERE!

Big thanks to all our PATREONS for their support, up next we have some really big interviews and so on and so on.

Enjoy!

⁠FULL EPISODE HERE⁠ This week, we present the third episode in our series of interviews with the Troika — after Slavoj Žižek, and Alenka Zupančič . We’re speaking with Mladen Dolar, Professor and Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Philosophy, at the University of Ljubljana.    Dolar is the co-founder of what has become known as ‘the Ljubljana School’. His principal areas of research are psychoanalysis, modern French philosophy, German Idealism, and art theory. He has lectured extensively at universities in the US and across Europe, and he is the author of over a hundred papers in scholarly journals and volume collections. Apart from ten books in Slovene, his book publications include most notably A Voice and Nothing More and Opera’s Second Death. We’re talking the voice, may 68, the early days in Ljubljana, Lacan, rumours and gossip, what’s in a name, and the decline of paternal authority.    Please consider supporting us on ⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠ for access to extra episodes and the ongoing production of the show! 

Alright, we’re back with another UNLOCKED ⁠PATREON⁠ episode and we’re talking ⁠Jacques Derrida⁠, the difference between parallax and différance, How To? with John Wilson, Krzysztof Kieślowski, documentary and fiction cinema, a deconstruction of Smash Mouth’s All Star, and the (w)hole in the picture. 

Thank you to all of our Patreons, we have our interview with Alenka Zupančič coming up soon!

Enjoy!

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE HERE!

Alright, this is a PATREON PREVIEW and we're back with the wonderful PETER ROLLINS talking Donald Trump's Sharpie & the rise of Obscene Masters, Paul Tillich, Simone Weil, Badiou and fidelity to an Event, Religion as a truth procedure, Jordan Peterson and Richard Dawkins, and of course...Seamus gambling with God.

LISTEN TO THE FIRST PART OF OUR INTERVIEW WITH PETER HERE!

Big thanks to Peter and all of you over the years who have asked us to have a chat with him and we look forward to doing it again!

Stay tuned because we have a few very exciting guests before the end of the year...

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

See you in Paris!

Ž&...

It’s summer and the fellas are back! Today we're talking with Adrian Johnston, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of New Mexico.

In this first part of a series we’re talking the philosophical foundations of Žižek’s work, the equivalence between negativity and Death Drive at the core of Žižek’s theory of subjectivity, Transcendental Materialism, and Johnston’s efforts toward changing the reception of Žižek’s work.

Adrian has published and co-edited a number of books notably his essential trio on Slavoj Žižek in “Žižek’s Ontology”, “Badiou, Žižek, and Political Transformations: The Cadence of Change”, and “A New German Idealism” and his groundbreaking work in the Prolegomena series and soon to be published "Infinite Greed: Money, Marxism, Psychoanalysis". 

To ⁠LISTEN⁠ to ⁠PART TWO⁠ of our interview head to our ⁠PATREON⁠ where you can gain access to all of our previous episodes, interviews, courses, and the Discord community and our Reading Groups.

Enjoy!

⁠zizekandsoon.com⁠

In this episode we take a second pass at Žižek’s new book “Hegel in a Wired Brain”, and further discuss the concept of the wired brain and its limitations. Other topics include poetry, Winston-Churchill-Heidegger, the status of Spirit and subject, the signification/meaning distinction, and how singularity can’t take a joke.

https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/hegel-in-a-wired-brain-9781350124417/

This is a clip from the full episode, available on our patreon.  Today we're talking about Žižek's new book "Surplus-Enjoyment: A Guide For The Non-Perplexed", as well as an essay by him on the same topic. We touch on political correctness, surplus value, and the obscene drive of football. Enjoy! Listen to the full episode here. Also, subscribe to join our message board on Discord, our book and film-clubs, and our upcoming reading series with Matt Flisfeder on Žižek's "For They Know Not What They Do", beginning in October.

On this week's episode, we get into Žižek's semiotic triangle of German, French, and English/American toilets. We discuss the metaphysical stance of the German toilet, the revolutionary posture of the French, and the utilitarian and pragmatic sensibility of the English toilet. We also talk about the waterless urinal, the austerity politics of low-flow taps, and many other excremental subjects. Take a seat and have a listen!

On the podcast this week we interview Agon Hamza, the author and editor of a number of books, including “Reading Marx'', co-written with Frank Ruda and Slavoj Žižek, and “Repeating Žižek”, in which he contributed “A Plea for Žižekian Politics”. We discuss the situation in Kosova, the EU—eurocentrism, and the remainder of the Balkans—the “problem” of Politics, the “borromean knot” of Žižek’s political theory, theory vs. practice, communism, and alienation.

https://www.patreon.com/zizekandsoon

Hamza and Ruda’s Interview with Albin Kurti: https://crisiscritique.org/2020/2020kurti.pdf

@Agonhamza

@zizekand

This week the fellas read through Žižek’s Looking Awry. We’re talking anamorphosis, Shakespeare, Zeno’s Paradoxes and the end of the world. Will is in the woods, Peter is at a gathering and Michael’s cat is out of the bag. Thank you to all our fellow Thespians, Ž&… For access to many more episodes, and to support us, check out our Patreon! PODCAST YOUTUBE INSTAGRAM

This week, the fellas talk the Lacanian notion of 'the Gaze' as discussed in Todd McGowan's 'Looking for the Gaze: Lacanian Film Theory and Its Vicissitudes'. Join our Patreon for more episodes! https://www.patreon.com/zizekandsoon Website: https://www.zizekandsoon.com/

FULL EPISODE HERE

This is a PREVIEW for PART TWO of our conversation with professor RUSSELL SBRIGLIA and we're talking Lacanian theory and Moby Dick, the Kantian and Hegelian Sublime, Master Signifier and the Thing, the Whiteness of the Whale, and Orca attacks. 

We have some big interviews coming up and some

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS.

Thank you to all of our PATREONS and everyone who listens and supports us.

Enjoy!

This week we're joined by Russ Sbriglia to discuss Zizek's upcoming events in the tristate area. Slavoj will be at Seaton Hall University in New Jersey on Monday April 8th! Zizek will also be in New York City, at NYU and the New School (sign up online for those events!) After technical updates we discuss Russ' recent essay, "Enjoy Your Trump". We talk politics of enjoyment, the upcoming election, and yes he's back again, Trump. To support the podcast and gain access to many more episodes, join our Patreon Enjoy!

Exciting news! For the first time Bloomsbury has published a book length overview and guide to Slavoj Žižek's 1989 text The Sublime Object of Ideology and we're talking with it's author Rafael Winkler about his reading of Slavoj Žižek's famous text.

Rafael is an Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy, University of Johannesburg, South Africa. He’s the author of Žižek’s The Sublime Object of Ideology: A Reader’s Guide (London: Bloomsbury, 2024), Philosophy of Finitude: Heidegger, Levinas, and Nietzsche (London: Bloomsbury, 2019), Identity and Difference (ed.) (London and New York: Routledge, 2018), Phenomenology and Naturalism (ed.) (London and New York: Routledge, 2017), and Identity and Difference: Contemporary Debates on the Self (ed.) (London: Palgrave, 2016)

More on the book from Bloomsbury.

First published in 1989, The Sublime Object of Ideology was Žižek's breakthrough work, and is still regarded by many as his masterpiece. It was an iconoclastic reinvention of ideology critique that introduced the English-speaking world to Žižek's scorching brand of cultural and philosophical commentary and the multifaceted ways in which he explained it. Tying together concepts from aesthetics, psychoanalytic theory, cultural studies and the philosophy of belief, it changed the face of contemporary commentary and remains the underpinning of much of his subsequent thinking.
This compelling guide introduces all of the influential thinkers and foundational concepts which Žižek draws on to create this seminal work. Grounding the text's many and varied references in the work of Peter Sloterdijk, Saul Kripke, Walter Benjamin, Jacques Lacan, Jacques Derrida, Immanuel Kant and G.W.F. Hegel, amongst others, helps students who are encountering this mercurial writer for the first time to understand the philosophical context of his early explorations. Each of Žižek's key arguments are unpacked and laid out, alongside an invaluable account of how The Sublime Object of Ideology impacted the critical terrain on which it landed.

Enjoy!

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE HERE!

This week, we're joined again by Jack Black, Associate Professor of Culture, Media, and Sport at Sheffield Hallam University. We're talking football, melancholy, and English football anthems. How does football, or 'soccer', serve as an emblematic example of the Freudian/Žižekian concept of drive? Jack explains!

For access to the full episode, and access to many more interviews, check out our PATREON! Thank you to all of our Patrons, we have some VERY SPECIAL guests coming up, so stick around.  

Enjoy!

This episode, we take another stab at our failed attempt to talk about Žižek and film. Earlier in the week we spoke to Dr. Matthew Flisfeder, the author of the 2012 book The Symbolic, the Sublime, and Slavoj Žižek's Theory of Film— but we did not record the conversation. So, in our second attempt to tackle this crucial topic in Žižek's work, we talk about Matthew's book, as well as "The Pervert's Guide to Cinema", the choice between reality and illusion, the third pill, Hitchcock's MacGuffin, the parallax object, and wonder why film?

Music at the close ("Stromboli") is by Matteo Ciambella https://matteociambella.bandcamp.com/

Dr. Matthew Flisfeder: @MattFlisfeder on twitter, https://matthewflisfeder.com/

https://www.patreon.com/zizekandsoon  :  @zizekand : https://www.facebook.com/Zizek-and-So-On-126096985581365

Yes, folks, Jake's in the house and Will is in the Hamptons (???). Michael thinks it's winter, and Peter's super(calafragalisticexpialadoshus). More importantly—we're talking Zizek & Communism, the contemporary political deadlock, and why we need a third (red) pill. Enjoy! We read from Zizek's recent article "Last Exit to Communism" from https://www.philosophy-world-democracy.org/articles-1/last-exit-to-communism Head to zizekandsoon.com or patreon.com/zizekandsoon for the Žižek & So On Podcast New episodes every week — Join us on our Patreon for Discord access and many more Patreon exclusive episodes.

This week, on Zizek and So on, we interview Todd McGowan, professor of English at the University of Vermont. Todd’s thought centralizes on the likes of Hegel, Lacan, Freud and Marx, and he is the author of several books, most notably, “Capitalism and Desire: The Psychic Cost of Free Markets”, and last year's “Emancipation After Hegel: Achieving a Contradictory Revolution.” His newest book “Universality and Identity Politics” is set to come out this July.   

Todd also co-hosts a terrific podcast with Ryan Engley called "Why Theory?" And we encourage you guys to seek it out.  

Todd spoke with us this week about the unity of Hegel and Lacan that is present in both his work and Zizek’s, about post-structuralism, the concept of contradiction, and the problem of the subject.

This week, the gang discusses Zizek’s 2008 work Violence: wherein a girl gets a dragon tattoo, Pete gets mystical, and it rains again in Australia. For access to our patron episodes and to join our Discord server: 

https://www.patreon.com/zizekandsoon

This week, we take on Žižek’s concept of the Event and ask: what happens when something happens?

Join our Patreon for more exclusive content!

Listen to the full episode on our patreon: https://www.patreon.com/zizekandsoon

We're back with Jack Black. More on Lacanian theory and comedy, with examples ranging from the Black Eyed Peas to Philomena Cunk. We begin with discussing celebrity and false comedy, and later engage (again) with covid and conspiracy theory. We also get the dish on Jack's favourite premier league team, interpassivity and sports, and decide, once and for all, that the Matrix surpasses Blade Runner as the paradigmatic film for Žižekian theory. More on that soon.

Alright, we’re back again with ADRIAN JOHNSTON to discuss more of his book INFINITE GREED: THE INHUMAN SELFISHNESS OF CAPITAL.

FULL EPISODE ON OUR PATREON HERE!

Adrian takes us through some of the shifts in Freud’s positions on Marxism and this insistence on negativity as history’s “real motor”. Are we worth our weight in gold? What is the link between infinite greed and philanthropy? How do we account for the shift in leftist concerns along identitarian lines with the seemingly repressed exception of class differences? How to shift it? What can be done about this curious case of theoretical amnesia? Are we still within capitalism or not? Are we techno-feudal, post-capital? What is Adrian’s position on the claim that we have moved beyond capitalism today? Stick around for some updates at the end about his new co-written debate book with Slavoj Žižek that is in the works. Thanks for all your support, up next we have a brand new series on Slavoj Žižek’s Living in the End Times and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse!

Support the podcast on PATREON and LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE HERE!

Alright, the podcast is back for a new season. Don’t wake up! This episode we’re talking Alenka Zupanċič’s latest book Disavowal. Father, can't you see that I'm burning? What is disavowal and why does it function differently today? We’re talking knowing, fear, nightmares, and deception. Catastrophe, serial crisis, immediacy, alienation, and the apocalypse.

Next week we’re talking to Alenka, let us know if you have any questions for us to ask.

A big thank you to everyone who has supported us over the last few years and we have a lot of big interviews and episodes coming up!

GET THE BOOK HERE!

See you in Paris.

Enjoy!

This week we're joined by Slavoj Zizek! We discuss his new book, Christian Atheism, Judith Butler, the mafia, and where to find a good diner in New York.

To support the podcast and gain access to many more episodes, join our Patreon Enjoy!

On this patreon-exclusive episode, we talk about Žižek's June 22nd article "POWER, APPEARANCE, AND OBSCENITY". We touch on the topics of populism, political correctness, covid, the current protests, and object oriented ontology.

To hear the full episode and to hear more content, check out our patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/zizekandsoon

Here's the link to the article:

https://thephilosophicalsalon.com/power-appearance-and-obscenity-five-reflections/

On this patreon-exclusive episode we discuss Žižek's eurocentrism. For Žižek, Eurocentrism isn't to be understood as a nationalist idea, but instead as an opening for truly universal political and philosophical horizons. In this excerpt from our Patreon exclusive episode, the fellas discuss Eurocentrism and multiculturalism; and how a return to 'authentic tradition' is an effect of, rather than a challenge to, the capitalist economic system.  Join our Patreon for full access to this and other episodes.  https://www.patreon.com/zizekandsoon

We're live with They Live—our episode on Žižek's famous interpretation of John Carpenter's wonderful 1988 film. We touch on Ž's points concerning "the glasses" of the critique of ideology versus the conventional notion of ideology—the rose colored glasses. We also think about the film as a Žižekian example, and push an interpretation of the film's alien beings as the "figure of" ideology.

To hear the full episode, subscribe to our Patreon: 

https://www.patreon.com/zizekandsoon

Žižek & So On Podcast LISTEN: https://www.tinyurl.com/zizekpodcasts This is PART TWO of our interview with Slavoj Žižek for the official book launch with Bloomsbury Publishing of Žižek’s latest book Freedom: A Disease Without A Cure. We’re talking the the wired brain, the Opium wars, freedom and politics, quantum physics and determinism, fate and the role of Subject, concrete and abstract freedoms, the ontology of sex, and why we need an authentic master today.

Thanks to Bloomsbury and all our new Patreons, next up we’re speaking with Alenka Zupančič.

Purchase the book here: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/freedom-9781350357129/

Enjoy!

This week, we discuss Zizek's approach to Buddhism. From the first Noble Truth, Buddhism describes human existence as an endless cycle of suffering, and posits the path towards enlightenment as the severing of attachment, and the cessation of desire. From a psychoanalytic standpoint, Zizek emphasizes that, in contrast, we enjoy our suffering (as when we fall in love, for example), and that desire cannot be simply done away with. After discussing the finer points of a Lacano-Helgelian critique of Buddhism, the fellas get into Zizek's other major critiques of Western Buddhism; its associations with science and capitalism. Towards this, Zizek writes that Buddhism is perhaps the ideal religion for capitalism and for the CEOs of Silicon Valley, since it's prescription to withdraw from the world, and to see it and one's self as illusory, does little to change the system of oppression itself, and assures the passive acceptance of hegemonic realism.

To hear the second part of this discussion and access many more exclusive episodes, join our Patreon:

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This week, we talk Žižek’s concept of the Neighbor. In contrast with Levinas’ ethics of the Other, Žižek understands the neighbour to be the site of a kind of inhuman monstrosity. We ask: who are we to speak, who are you to listen?

Žižek’s text:

https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/N/bo16265666.html

For more episodes, join our Patreon:

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This week, the fellas are back with Anna Kornbluh. When we spoke with Alenka Zupančič recently, she told us we should interview Anna about her new book Immediacy, or The style of Too Late Capitalism. So we did!  

We’re talking mediation, the negative, Van Gogh immersive experiences, Sartre, Žižek’s early work on film, and the end of futurity.

This is a PATREON preview of our 90 minute interview, for the full episode and to SUPPORT the podcast LISTEN HERE! Our next interview is with MLADEN DOLAR... Enjoy!

FULL EPISODE HERE

This week the gang are talking Mladen Dolar’s “On Rumours, Gossip and Related Matters” from Objective Fictions as we prepare for the big interview!  

Mladen Dolar is a Slovenian philosopher, psychoanalyst, cultural theorist, and film critic. He is one third of the Troika with Alenka Zupančič and Slavoj Žižek and the co-founder, together with Slavoj Žižek of the Society for Theoretical Psychoanalysis

Rumours brought down old mate Socrates and there’s one going round that the big Other doesn’t exist.   

In the beginning there was – not the Word, logos, as in the Bible, not the act, as with Faust – in the beginning, there was a rumour.   

Will combats 5G with a Feng Shui mirror, Michael covers his windows in aluminium foil, and Peter defends himself against the metric system.   

Enjoy!

Alright...as you know Slavoj Žižek and Mladen Dolar are the founding members of the Ljubljana School of Psychoanalysis with Alenka Zupančič as part of their Troika, and this week we have our first episode of a new series we're doing on Mladen Dolar's upcoming book Rumors as part of the Theory Redux editions with Polity Press.

A little birdie told me that Tim is busy moving house and we're talking the general rumorization of society from Socrates to Trump, Franz Kafka's the Trial, Lacan's ethology, JD Vance and his couch, Castaways, and Cindy Crawford.

A lot of people are talking about it!

Thanks to everyone for all of the support and apologies for the episode delay...rumors abound!

SUPPORT THE PODCAST HERE - for more episodes, interviews, SHORT SESSIONS and our Discord!

See You in Paris!

Ž&...

Though we've been busy working through the ongoing reading group with Matthew Flisfeder on Žižek's For They Know Not What They Do: Enjoyment as a Political Factor we managed to get together to do an episode on enjoyment and prohibition as it is developed in FTKNWTD. Peter talks schoolyard pornography, Michael lost his job and Jake is back, what more can I say?  Thanks to Lorelai Gilmore. Žižek & So On Podcast Presents For They Know Not What They Do: A Reading Group with Matthew Flisfeder The audio recording of the first four sessions are now available for you to listen to on our Patreon which can be found here: FTKNWTD AUDIO SESSIONS Get on the Discord with us as we continue to prepare for the sessions together! Patreon Website Instagram Youtube

This week, the fellas are back with Anna Kornbluh. When we spoke with Alenka Zupančič recently, she told us we should interview Anna about her new book Immediacy Or, The style of Too Late Capitalism. So we did! We’re talking mediation, the negative, Van Gogh immersive experiences, Sartre, Žižek’s early work on film, and the end of futurity. Enjoy!

Check out our patreon page for extra content: https://www.patreon.com/join/zizekandsoon

On this episode, we talk to German philosopher Frank Ruda, senior lecturer in philosophy at the University of Dundee in Scotland. Dr. Ruda is the author of a number of books, including Hegel’s Rabble, The Dash, and, the focus of today’s episode, Reading Marx—co-written with Slavoj Žižek, and Agon Hamza.

We discuss Frank’s essay in the book “Marx in the Cave”—a short circuit between Plato’s myth of the cave, and Marx’s analysis of political economy. We touch on a range of topics, including the concept of an “experimental” reading of Marx, the links between emancipation and myth, Plato’s cave allegory as a depiction of the worker under capitalism, as well as the role of appearance and abstraction in understanding capitalism, the dynamics between the worker and time and freedom, the worker (un)animal, and the subject supposed to revolutionize.

Alright, while Tim's busy making two minute noodles we're speaking with Helen Rollins!

Check out her website here!

Helen is a filmmaker, academic, and writer from Northern Ireland who writes and lectures on film and psychoanalysis. Her latest book, Psychocinema, was published in 2024 in the Theory Redux series.

We’re talking the le non-duped err and messy bedrooms, the Gaze, the Master’s Discourse, the form of cinema, the politics of film as an industry today, and why film itself is a psychoanalytic experience. 

And here’s an endorsement from Slavoj Žižek for Helen’s new book…

“Helen Rollins’ Psychocinema does something that is very rare: it aims at changing the very frame of how cinema and psychoanalysis are related. Rollins shows that viewing a film is in itself a psychoanalytic experience, the effect of film on the viewer is that of psychoanalysis on the analysand. 

Watching a film confronts us with the truth of our desire in all its inconsistencies, with the lack that sustains this desire. This ground-breaking thesis is demonstrated by dozens of illustrious examples, and they make the book not only insanely readable but also an important contribution to today’s politics of emancipation.

I didn’t dare even to imagine that a book like Psychocinema could exist. But miracles happen, and Rollins’s book is one of them.”

Thanks Helen!

See you in Paris, 

Ž&...

This is a preview of a full episode available on our patreon.

Today we're talking Žižek's chapter in his book Absolute Recoil called "The Violence of the Beginning".

The reading begins with the notion that there is "nothing prior to the loss" of the sense of lost origins. Žižek then sets into play the idea of the self-alienation of spirit in the realm of translation to show the original brokenness of God Himself. We also question who the real James Bond is, hystericize Eliot's Prufrock, and discuss Emmanuel Carrere's novel The Moustache, all the while wondering—if we really meant what we said. 

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To hear the rest of our discussion head to our PATREON. In which the fellas dish on the recent developments in AI technology, the Žižek-Herzog (bad) "infinite conversation", coffee without cream, the interpassivity of artificially generated emails, learn what a billabong is from the resident Australian, that Will doesn't know how to use a mic, and get Peter's version Virtual Insanity by Jamiroquai. WEBSITE INSTAGRAM TWITTER YOUTUBE Articles: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/ai-post-human-future-by-slavoj-zizek-2023-04 https://www.sublationmag.com/post/chatgpt-says-what-our-unconscious-radically-represses https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-an-endless-conversation-with-werner-herzog-can-teach-us-about-ai/

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE HERE!

This is a PREVIEW of PART TWO of our conversation with Adrian Johnston, you can hear the whole thing and support us on our Patreon getting access to all of our Patreon episodes, the Discord and our courses.

The gang is back for the final part of our conversation with Adrian Johnston. It's a big one!

We're talking Žižek's relationship with Kant, Schelling and Hegel, the Roberts (Pippin and Brandom), Quantum Physics, the genesis of subjectivity, materialism, Catherine Malabou and Plasticity, nature, biology and neuroscience, cognitive science, Badiou, Althusser and Spinoza.

Big thanks to our Patreons for all of your support! Got some cool things coming up over the next few months, so stay tuned!

⁠zizekandsoon⁠

Alright, this week we’re speaking with the Austrian philosopher Robert Pfaller, Professor of Philosophy and Cultural Theory at the University of Art and Design in Linz and a founding member of a Vienna based psychoanalysis research group. We’re talking Illusions without Owners, Interpassivity, delegated enjoyment, What Life is Worth Living For and of course the sexual practices of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Will is in Paris, Peter is enjoying live music interpassively and Michael is subject to a gag order. To hear the rest of our discussion head to our PATREON and stay tuned for PART TWO!

Thank you to everyone for all of your support!

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It's 2024 and we’re back! We're talking what happens when you mean one thing but say amother. What role do jokes have throughout Žižek's work? This week we’re taking a look at Žižek’s Jokes via Todd McGowan, Jamil Khader, and Broderick Chow. In pod news, the final jewel of our Ljubljana crown…we’re talking to Mladen Dolar! Keep an eye out for upcoming episodes on his work as we prep for the interview. Thank you to everyone for being with us over the last four years, support us on Patreon to keep the Žižek & So On Podcast going!

Read along: Broderick Chow , Alenka Zupancic, Zizek's Jokes

-Enjoy!

⁠FULL EPISODE HERE

This is an excerpt from this week's Patreon episode. We're talking the inherent transgression of the law. Michael buys tickets for the big apple, Peter is freezing in a field, and Will reviews Stalker and the Third Man.

Enjoy!

Please consider supporting us on Patreon for access to extra episodes and the ongoing production of the show!

Bring Me My Philips Mental Jacket!

Alright, we’re ⁠Living in the End Times⁠, the commons of our nature has been captured and this is the second episode in our series on The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, or as Žižek sometimes puts it, the Four Riders of the Apocalypse.

This week we’re talking biogenetics!

Žižek says we are approaching a whole series of critical points, and the question is: can the global liberal democratic system – the capitalist system – deal with them or not?

⁠SUPPORT US ON PATREON!⁠

See you in Paris!

Ž&…

We're talking Freud's essay "Remembering, Repeating, and Working Through". How does remembering come to be replaced by repetition in analysis? Why did Tony Soprano fix Dr. Melfi's car? And how does Nietzsche's concept of eternal return compare with Freud's notions of repetition and working through?

Sign up to our Patreon for extra episodes, and to join our Discord:

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https://www.zizekandsoon.com/

In this wide-ranging second part of our interview, Ryan talks Seinfeld, Peep Show, Sartre and seriality, Batman, Barbie, and Tom Cruise. This is where the conversation really gets going, folks. Don’t miss it!

Join our ⁠Patreon⁠ for 2 extra episodes per month, and the back catalogue of dozens of extra episodes.

Subscribers can also sign up for our brand new reading group on Lacan's Seminar XI - The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. $5/month! You will also get access to our Discord server, a thriving community of Zizekians.

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A Coup d’etat? Unambiguously, NO. Terrorism? Let's think about why that term would be advantageous for the state to use. Insurrection? The right deed for the wrong reason.   

Patrons: “We love you. You’re very special”

To gain access to the full episode and our Discord, join our Patreon:

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Subscribe to our patreon for the full episode: https://www.patreon.com/zizekandsoon 

Welcome to the desert of the Real. We're talking the Matrix, and the much discussed new installment, The Matrix Resurrections.                          

We read this article for today's episode: https://www.lacan.com/zizek-matrix.htm

as well as this: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/a-muddle-not-a-movie-slavoj-i-ek-reviews-matrix-resurrections

Part ONE of our interview with Slavoj Žižek. Covid & philosophy; why we need "War Communism" &...

Join us on patreon to hear more episodes, and the upcoming second part—

https://www.patreon.com/zizekandsoon

Alright, you've been asking for it, and here it is... Adrian Johnston is back talking about his new book INFINITE GREED: THE INHUMAN SELFISHNESS OF CAPITAL.

If you want more episodes and to support our project head to PATREON!

Adrian says, “The capitalist socioeconomic system in its entirety thus resembles a person who shoves his own head up his own ass precisely in order to eat his own shit, or a snake that swallows its own tail specifically so as to consume its own feces.”

That’s right, we’re talking Marxian enjoyment as it corresponds to Lacanian pleasure, and Marxian enrichment as it corresponds to Lacanian enjoyment.

We all know by now that Marx created the symptom, but did he also create the Drive? Is selfishness essential to capitalism? Why did Marxism move away from economism? Are we technofeudal, neo-feudal, or post-capital? Where the hell are we? Find out as we go down the toilet with Adrian.

STAY TUNED FOR PART TWO!

Enjoy!

This is a preview of part two of our conversation with acclaimed director Sophie Fiennes about her Pervert's Guide series. We discuss the Pervert's guide films, William Shatner, space and the abyss of freedom, as well as the recent Rockhill hit piece on Slavoj. Special thank you to Sophie Fiennes for giving us so much of her time and to everyone who has supported us over the last three years. Share the episode if you can as it really helps both the podcast and getting the final Pervert’s Guide out into the world. We have some great interviews and episodes coming up so stay tuned. Enjoy!

SUPPORT US AND LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE HERE!

zizekandsoon.com

Alright, we’re back…plumbing the depths of psychoanalytic marxism! This week we discuss Slavoj Žižek’s Scatology through Adrian Johnston’s most recent book Infinite Greed: The Inhuman Selfishness of Capital.

Jacques Lacan points out that we are born between urine and faeces, and that man is the only animal for whom waste disposal is a problem. What is the relationship between money and waste? Freud points out this strange coincidence of the highest form (gold) and the lowest (shit), so why is shit a gift that keeps on giving? What does all of this have to do with Japanese hamburgers & Marx? 

We’re talking the political and libidinal economy of shit from the Scatalogical Rites of Nations & the Interpretation of Dreams to Uncut Gems, Cool Runnings, & Laporte’s History of Shit. 

SUPPORT OUR WORK ON PATREON FOR MORE EPISODES AND INTERVIEWS!

Up next we have two interviews with Adrian Johnston, & we’ll see you in Paris. 

Aufhebung(hole)!

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE HERE!

Alright, we're on our season break & here is the fourth episode of our new PATREON series SHORT SESSIONS and we’re talking Donald Trump, Freud's Totem & Taboo, and Todd McGowan's End of Dissatisfaction. This week it's cannibalism, the Unabomber, societies of prohibition, societies of enjoyment, and of course...the horror of incest. 

Spooky stuff to think about after Halloween.

Who ate the last cannibal?

Big thanks to our Patreon @moonraker1 for the episode request, and if any of you out there have an idea for an episode email us at zizekandsoon@gmail.com 

…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…

SUPPORT US ON PATREON!

See you in Paris,

Enjoy!

Alright, Todd McGowan is back again on the podcast to talk more about his most recent book Embracing Alienation: Why We Shouldn't Try to Find Ourselves.

⁠TO HEAR OUR FIRST CONVERSATION WITH TODD ABOUT HIS NEW BOOK YOU CAN LISTEN HERE!⁠

⁠⁠You can also listen to our episode on Alienation as a concept in Żižek's work here!⁠⁠

Are there good and bad forms of alienation? We're talking the politics of non-belonging, alienation in cinema, the defence of lost causes, Friends and the failure of beginnings and the impossibility of endings, Lacan's debt to Jean Paul Sartre, identitarian politics, and Slavoj Žižek.

⁠⁠SUPPORT OUR PROJECT ON PATREON!⁠⁠

Up next we have a new SHORT SESSION on Žižek's recent Substack which you can find here!

Enjoy!

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE HERE!

In this wide-ranging second part of our interview, Ryan talks Seinfeld, Peep Show, Sartre and seriality, Batman, Barbie, and Tom Cruise. This is where the conversation really gets going, folks. Don’t miss it!

Join our Patreon for 2 extra episodes per month, and the back catalogue of dozens of extra episodes. Subscribers can also sign up for our brand new reading group on Lacan's Seminar XI - The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. $5/month! You will also get access to our Discord server, a thriving community of Zizekians.

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UNLOCKED: Today we're talking Žižek's chapter in his book Absolute Recoil called "The Violence of the Beginning". The reading begins with the notion that there is "nothing prior to the loss" of the sense of lost origins. Žižek then sets into play the idea of the self-alienation of spirit in the realm of translation to show the original brokenness of God Himself. We also question who the real James Bond is, hystericize Eliot's Prufrock, and discuss Emmanuel Carrere's novel The Moustache, all the while wondering—if we really meant what we said.  Dig it! SUPPORT THE PODCAST: https://www.patreon.com/zizekandsoon

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE HERE!

Join our Patreon for 2 extra episodes per month, and the back catalogue of dozens of extra episodes. Subscribers can also sign up for our brand new reading group on Lacan's Seminar XI - The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. $5/month! You will also get access to our Discord server, a thriving community of Zizekians.

This week we're talking Mary Shelly, myth & monstrosity, family, Freud and Frankenstein. For this episode, we've read "History and family in Frankenstein” in Zizek's In Defense of Lost Causes. Why are stories so often posed through the motif of the family drama? Does the myth of the family distract from the real historical frame of the novel? Who coined the term capitalist realism? Is the mistake of calling the monster "Frankenstein" like calling a soda "Coke"? Enjoy!

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Alright, we’re back…LET'S GET ALIENATED! This is a PATREON PREVIEW of this weeks episode where we discuss Todd McGowan's latest book Embracing Alienation: Why We Shouldn’t Try to Find Ourselves.

TO LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE SUPPORT OUR PROJECT ON PATREON!

We’re talking the Politics of Alienation, Separation, What’s in a Name, Failing with Style, Toy Story, & so on…

Up next is our two part interview with Todd...so stick around!

More info on Todd's book here!

See you in Paris.

Enjoy!

This week the fellas talk Žižek's use of the Möbius strip. Žižek writes that "the Möbius strip stands for the basic dynamics of the order of being, for what was traditionally called the dialectical 'coincidence of opposites'". While working through the concept, &SoOn talks art, Top Gun, and Midnight In Paris. For access to more episodes and our discord, join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/zizekandsoon Website: https://www.zizekandsoon.com/

The fellas are back—and are accompanied by a new member. We dive into two recent articles from the Philosophical Salon. The first is by Fabio Vighi, who charges Žižek with capitulating too easily to new forms of social domination with his acceptance of lockdowns. Vighi argues that we now live “in a neo-feudal inferno where our Lords enslave us in order to protect us, and protect us in order to enslave us.” In his response, Žižek charges Vighi with missing the crucial lesson that the “brutal reality of the pandemic [is] a contingent event,” not some mega-plot knowingly developed and orchestrated by the establishment. The argument laid out by Vighi is, Žižek argues, dangerously close to a paranoid conspiracy theory. Following Žižek, we discuss how Vighi’s position is maintained by the fantasy of a consistent ordering of the antagonism at the heart of the social and the symbolic order.

Yes, we’re back. Thanks to all our listeners, new and old, and our patrons who have stuck with us during our hiatus. More to come!

Episode reading:

Vighi: SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK, EMERGENCY CAPITALISM, AND THE CAPITULATION OF THE LEFT ; Žižek: LES NON-DUPES ERRENT

This week, the fellas talk through Žižek's 2002 essay, 'The Actuality of Ayn Rand'. For Žižek, Rand's over-orthodoxy to the capitalist ideal (unintentionally) undermines the ruling ideological edifice. Will has a haircut, Peter has a t-shirt, and Michael's roof is leaking. Subscribe to our Patreon for more content! https://www.patreon.com/zizekandsoon

In this patreon-exclusive episode, we take a second pass at Žižek’s new book “Hegel in a Wired Brain”, and further discuss the concept of the wired brain and it’s limitations. Other topics include poetry, Winston-Churchill-Heidegger, the status of Spirit and subject, the signification/meaning distinction, and how singularity can’t take a joke.

to hear the full episode and other extra content join our patreon at:

https://www.patreon.com/zizekandsoon

This week, the fellas speak to Media Professor Ryan Engley of 'Why Theory'. We talk Freud, Lacan, the correct spelling of Todd McGowan, and how Seinfeld reveals the existential concept of seriality. Enjoy!

To support the podcast and find access to many more episodes, join our PATREON

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LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE HERE!

Alright, we’re back with a new PATREON EPISODE while Tim's still on an island painting a face on a volleyball & we're taking another look at Todd McGowan's new book Pure Excess.

Capitalism promises things beyond their usefulness, the enjoyment of a useless excess, an excess which is presented as pure when it is necessarily impure — there is always a hidden sacrifice.

We're talking Jackie Kennedy's fake pearl necklace selling for $200,000, Paper Water and the Resnick's, Trump's Air Rights, and why we can't have McDonalds at home. 

Big thanks to our ⁠PATREONS⁠ for the ongoing support!

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

See you in Paris, 

Ž&…

Episode 20, a Patreon exclusive, is all about toilets. We discuss Žižek’s three examples of toilets (the German, French, and Anglo thrones) that form an ideological tripartite, each demonstrating different ways of dealing with the excrement of the Real. We also talk the austerity politics of waterless urinals and low-flow taps, “green” toilet paper, and how ideology permeates what we consider the most elemental and excremental. Take a seat, and have a listen

join our patreon at: https://www.patreon.com/zizekandsoon

twitter: @zizekand

Alright, we’re trying something different, a brand new monthly – or thereabouts – PATREON series on the podcast called SHORT SESSIONS…This week we're talking disaster films and the 2024 Netflix American adult animated apocalyptic comedy drama Carol & The End of the World.

Is it subversive to NOT enjoy the end of the world? Through the usual suspects like Alenka Zupančič and Slavoj Žižek we discuss the ongoing Serial Crisis, Whistleblowers, the Biden v Trump debate, Bartleby Politics, Disavowal, the Production of Community, the Popular Attachment to Catastrophe...and why you should tell your loved ones you hate them when you're going to die in a plane crash.

Big thanks to our Patreon @shitforbrains for the episode request, and if any of you out there have an idea for an episode email us at zizekandsoon@gmail.com 

…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…

SUPPORT US ON PATREON!

See you in Paris,

Enjoy!

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE HERE!

This week the fellas read through Žižek’s Looking Awry. We’re talking anamorphosis, Shakespeare, Zeno’s Paradoxes and the end of the world. Will is in the woods, Peter is at a gathering and Michael’s cat is out of the bag.

Thank you to all our fellow Thespians,

Ž&…

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Part 1 of our interview with Russell Sbriglia on his book Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Literature but Were Afraid to Ask Žižek.

We're talking Lacanian psychoanalysis as a way to interpret literature, Žižek's bad taste in novels, toilets, the object from inner space, why Beckett is better than Joyce, and what Tony Soprano's major was.

Join our ⁠Patreon⁠ for extra episodes, and the back catalogue of dozens of extra episodes.

Buy Russell's book here!

On this week's patron ep, we talk the relation between form and content. Zizek suggests that, "the very gap between content and form is to be reflected back into the content itself, as an indication that the content is not all, that something was repressed/excluded from it". For Zizek, both form and content are incomplete; form itself becomes part of its content.   For access to the full episode (and many more), join our Patreon!   https://www.patreon.com/zizekandsoon

This week, we speak to Ben Burgis, professor at Georgia State Perimeter College and author (and co-author) of recent Zero Books publications "Give Them an Argument" and "Myth and Mayhem". Our discussion ranges from the Žižek v. Jordan Peterson debate, to the state of the Left (after its recent social democratic failures), the difference between formal and dialectical logic, and many other topics.

patreon: https://www.patreon.com/zizekandsoon

We continue our conversation with Dr. Flisfeder on his book "Algorithmic Desire, Toward a New Structuralist Theory of Social Media". Matt also gives us the behind the scenes scoop on the 'Debate of the Century' with Jordan Peterson.  Enjoy!

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We're talking Jesus Christ, Žižek's Christian Atheism, and Christmas. How do Christ and God figure in Žižek's work? Is God Dead? Also, the Big (m)Other. From the pod to you, merry Christmas—especially to the atheists. Thanks to all our listeners.  https://www.patreon.com/zizekandsoon Reading this week:  "The Deposed God" from Disparities