(Per)Versions of Love and Hate

Renata Salecl examines the disturbing and complex relationships between love and hate, violence and admiration, libidinal and destructive drives, through an investigation of phenomena as diverse as the novels The Age of Innocence and Remains of the Day, Hollywood melodramas, the Siren song, Ceaucescu's Rumania and the Russian performance artist Oleg Kulik, who acts like a dog and bites his audience. Perversions of Love and Hate presents a unique and timely interruption in contemporary debates by questioning the legitimacy of the calls for tolerance and respect by multiculturalists and exploring practices such as body-mutilation as symptoms of the radical change that has affected subjectivity in contemporary society.

Renata Salcel is a philosopher and sociologist. She is Senior Researcher at the Institute of Criminology, University of Ljublijana, Slovenia, and Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics. Her previous books include The Spoils of Freedom and, edited with Slavoj Žižek, Gaze and Voice as Love Objects.