Zizek and Media Studies

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Since the early 1970s, film, media, and cultural theorists have appealed to Lacanian psychoanalytic theory in order to discern processes of subjectivization, representation, and ideological interpellation. However, beginning with the work of theorists such as Jacqueline Rose, Joan Copjec, and Slavoj Zizek, a new approach to Lacan has been advanced, one which pays closer attention to concepts such as sexual difference, the 'objet petit a' (the object-cause of desire), fantasy, the Real, enjoyment, and the drive. Zizek in particular has advanced a political-philosophical re-interpretation of Lacan that has spawned a whole new wave of film, media, and cultural theory that shows a marked difference from an early Lacanian approach. The contributors in this book take up a specifically Zizekian approach to studies of cinema and media, both old and new, raising questions about power, ideology, sexual difference, and enjoyment. Including chapters written by key figures in Zizekian film, media, and cultural theory such as Jodi Dean, Todd McGowan, Paul A. Taylor, and Fabio Vighi, it concludes with a response from Zizek himself.

Freud and the Non-European

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Banned by the Freud Institute in Vienna, this controversial lecture became Edward Said's final book. Using an impressive array of material from literature, archaeology and social theory, Edward Said explores the profound implications of Freuds Moses and Monotheism for Middle-East politics today.

The resulting book reveals Said's abiding interest in Freud's work and its important influence on his own. He proposes that Freud's assumption that Moses was an Egyptian undermines any simple ascription of a pure identity, and further that identity itself cannot be thought or worked through without the recognition of the limits inherent in it. Said suggests that such an unresolved, nuanced sense of identity might, if embodied in political reality, have formed, or might still form, the basis for a new understanding between Jews and Palestinians. Instead, Israel's relentless march towards an exclusively Jewish state denies any sense of a more complex, inclusive past.

Introduction by Christopher Bollas

With contributions by Jacqueline Rose

Edward Wadie Said