Zizek Beyond Foucault

With Slavoj Zizek and Michel Foucault, this book brings into dialogue two of the most influential thinkers in contemporary critical theory. Starting from a thorough reassessment of the Foucauldian paradigm of discourse analysis, it explores the theoretical scope, empirical usefulness and political relevance of Zizek's explosive combination of Lacanian psychoanalysis, Hegelian philosophy and Marxist politics. The contrasting comparison between the two thinkers throws into sharp relief the commonalities and irreconcilable differences of their respective approaches to critical theory. By unmasking reality as contingent symbolic fiction, the authors argue, Foucauldian criticism has only deconstructed the world in various ways; the point, however, is 'to recognize the Real in what appears to be mere symbolic fiction' (Zizek), and to change it. The analysis of key concepts is accompanied by two empirical case studies which put theory to the test.

FABIO VIGHI is Lecturer in Italian Studies at Cardiff University. HEIKO FELDNER is Lecturer in German Studies at Cardiff University.

Introduction: Did Somebody Say Ideology? * Discourse Analysis Revisited * The Dark Shadow of Power: From Resistance to Radical Agency * The 'Positive Unconscious' and the 'Real of Desire' * From Historicism to Historicity * Case Study I: The Historian's Gaze - The Rise and Fall of Scientific Objectivity * Case Study II: Zizek for Cinema Today - The Case of the Missing Gaze and its Consequences * Conclusions Introduction: Did Somebody Say Ideology? * Discourse Analysis Revisited * The Dark Shadow of Power: From Resistance to Radical Agency * The 'Positive Unconscious' and the 'Real of Desire' * From Historicism to Historicity * Case Study I: The Historian's Gaze - The Rise and Fall of Scientific Objectivity * Case Study II: Zizek for Cinema Today - The Case of the Missing Gaze and its Consequences * Conclusions