The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology

Zizek's central argument in this book is that we have to rescue a "hard" conception of subject against the assault by democratic theorists, deconstructionists, and holistic New Agers. The subject is someone who does not give up on his desire; someone who is firm on his convictions -a blissful orthodox. This subjective hard core is compromised by following the dominant consensus on what a good society should be (Habermas),... Read Full Review

If you had pretty much given up on Zizek after Metaseses of Enjoyment and Plague of Fantasies, both of which contain some embarassingly bad writing, you will be happy to rad this book. Routledge finally gave Zizek a new copyeditor, and what a difference she makes! ALthough Zizek's new concept of "the Act" smacks of Chrisitan mysticisim, the book is one of his stngest. It's otfen very insightful about academic trends and... Read Full Review

Check this quote out from the book on the symbolic institution:) "The mysterious character of this moment can best be illustrated by a funny thing that happened during the last election campaign in Slovenia, when a member of the ruling political party was approached by an elderly lady from his local constituency, asking for help. She was convinced that the street number of her house (not the standard 13, but 23)... Read Full Review

Slovenian author Slavoj Zizek has been rearing his head for awhile, but this might be his big break-through. In "The Ticklish Subject", he is actually outlining an argument for the return of the Cartesian subject, the universal subject, whose presence he claims is "a spectre haunting Western academia...". He argues that the rejection of this cogito is what unites an astounding array of intellectual thinking just before... Read Full Review