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{{Short description|Slovenian philosopher (born 1949)}}
{{Redirect|Zizek|the film about the subject of this article|Zizek!{{!}}''Zizek!''}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2021}}
{{Infobox academic
| name = Slavoj Žižek
| image = Slavoj Žižek 2015 (closeup).jpg
| alt =
| caption = Žižek in 2015
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|df=yes|1949|3|21}}
| birth_place = [[Ljubljana]], [[Socialist Republic of Slovenia|PR Slovenia]], [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|FPR Yugoslavia]]
| education = {{indented plainlist|
* [[University of Ljubljana]] ([[Bachelor of Arts|BA]], [[Master of Arts|MA]], [[Doctor of Arts|DA]])
* [[University of Paris VIII]] ([[PhD]])
}}
| thesis_title = La philosophie entre le symptôme et le fantasme
| spouse = {{Marriage|[[Jela Krečič]]|2013}}
| children = 2
| era = {{nowrap|[[20th-century philosophy|20th-]]/[[21st-century philosophy#Contemporary philosophy|21st-century philosophy]]}}
| region = [[Western philosophy]]
| thesis_url = https://www.sudoc.fr/043787738
| thesis_year = 1986
| school_tradition = {{unbulleted indent list|style= white-space:nowrap; |[[Continental philosophy]] |[[Ljubljana school of psychoanalysis]] |[[Lacanian psychoanalysis]]<ref>{{cite journal |author-last=Hook |author-first=Derek |date=July 2016 |title=Of Symbolic Mortification and 'Undead–Life': Slavoj Žižek on the Death Drive |editor1-last=Ffytche |editor1-first=Matt |editor2-last=Herzog |editor2-first=Dagmar |journal=Psychoanalysis and History |___location=[[Edinburgh]] |publisher=[[Edinburgh University Press]] |volume=18 |issue=2 |pages=221–256 |doi=10.3366/pah.2016.0190 |hdl=2263/60702 |issn=1460-8235 |eissn=1755-201X|hdl-access=free }}</ref> |[[Post-Hegelianism]]<ref>{{cite book |editor-first=Bostjan |editor-last=Nedoh |title=Lacan and Deleuze: A Disjunctive Synthesis |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |year=2016 |page=193 |quote=Žižek is convinced that post-Hegelian psychoanalytic drive theory is both compatible with and even integral to a Hegelianism reinvented for the twenty-first century.}}</ref> |[[Freudo-Marxism]]}}
| doctoral_advisor = [[Jacques-Alain Miller]]
| main_interests = {{hlist |[[Ideology]] |[[Marxism]] |[[ontology]] |[[political theory]] |[[psychoanalysis]] |[[cultural studies]] |[[film theory]] |[[theology]] |[[German idealism]] | [[dialectic]]}}
| institutions =
| workplaces = {{unbulleted list |[[University of Ljubljana]] | University of Paris VIII | [[New York University]] | [[Birkbeck, University of London]]}}
| doctoral_students = [[Adrian Johnston (philosopher)|Adrian Johnston]]
| notable_ideas = {{ubli|[[Interpassivity]]|[[Subversive affirmation|Over-identification]]|[[Ideology|Ideological]] [[Fantasy (psychology)|fantasy]] (ideology as an [[Unconscious mind|unconscious]] fantasy that structures reality)<ref name="iep.utm.edu"/>|Revival of [[dialectical materialism]]}}
}}
{{Socialism sidebar|intellectuals}}
'''Slavoj Žižek''' ({{IPAc-en|audio=En-us-Slavoj Žižek.oga|ˈ|s|l|ɑː|v|ɔɪ|_|ˈ|ʒ|iː|ʒ|ɛ|k}} {{respell|SLAH|voy|_|ZHEE|zhek}}; {{IPA|sl|ˈsláːʋɔj ˈʒíːʒək|lang}}; born 21 March 1949) is a Slovenian [[neo-Marxist]] philosopher, [[cultural theory|cultural theorist]] and [[public intellectual]].<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Slavoj Žižek |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Slavoj-Zizek |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |access-date=8 June 2022 |archive-date=16 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220316200721/https://www.britannica.com/biography/Slavoj-Zizek |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Professor Slavoj Zizek |url=https://www.bbk.ac.uk/our-staff/profile/8007763/slavoj-zizek |website=Birkbeck |access-date=8 June 2022 |archive-date=8 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220608130531/https://www.bbk.ac.uk/our-staff/profile/8007763/slavoj-zizek |url-status=live }}</ref>
Žižek is the international director of the [[Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities]] at the [[University of London]], Global Distinguished Professor of German at [[New York University]], professor of philosophy and psychoanalysis at [[European Graduate School|the European Graduate School]] and senior researcher at the Institute for Sociology and Philosophy at the [[University of Ljubljana]].<ref>{{Cite web |last= |title=Faculty of the European Graduate School: Slavoj Žižek |url=https://egs.edu/biography/slavoj-zizek/ |access-date=2024-09-01 |website=The European Graduate School |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Slavoj Žižek |url=https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/author/slavoj-%C5%BEi%C5%BEek/ |website=Bloomsbury |access-date=8 June 2022 |archive-date=8 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220608115201/https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/author/slavoj-%C5%BEi%C5%BEek/ |url-status=live }}</ref> He primarily works on [[continental philosophy]] (particularly [[Hegelianism]], [[psychoanalysis]] and [[Marxism]]) and [[political theory]], as well as [[film criticism]] and [[theology]].
Žižek is the most famous associate of the [[Ljubljana School of Psychoanalysis]], a group of Slovenian academics working on [[German Idealism|German idealism]], [[Lacanian psychoanalysis]], [[critique of ideology|ideology critique]], and [[media criticism]]. His breakthrough work was 1989's ''[[The Sublime Object of Ideology]]'', his first book in English, which was decisive in the introduction of the Ljubljana School's thought to English-speaking audiences. He has written over 50 books in multiple languages and speaks [[Slovene language|Slovene]], [[Serbo-Croatian]],<ref>{{cite AV media |title=Slavoj Žižek & Srećko Horvat: After Capitalism? {{!}} DiEM25 |via=YouTube | date=14 February 2022 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05sI42yxupg |access-date=2023-11-24 |language=en |archive-date=24 November 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231124085153/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05sI42yxupg&gl=US&hl=en |url-status=live }}</ref> [[English language|English]], [[German language|German]],<ref>{{cite AV media |title=Willkommen in der Wüste des Realen Slavoj Zizek |via=YouTube | date=30 August 2015 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1J1q0uaDt4 |access-date=2023-11-24 |language=en |archive-date=24 November 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231124085154/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1J1q0uaDt4 |url-status=live }}</ref> and [[French language|French]].<ref>{{Citation |title=Slavoj Zizek – Entretien (L'apocalypse selon Slavoj Zizek) | date=8 June 2022 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buNLOXtJDwc |access-date=2023-11-24 |language=en |archive-date=24 November 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231124085153/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buNLOXtJDwc&gl=US&hl=en |url-status=live }}</ref> The [[idiosyncratic]] style of his public appearances, frequent magazine [[op-ed]]s, and academic works, characterised by the use of [[blue humour|obscene jokes]] and [[pop culture|pop cultural]] examples, as well as [[political correctness|politically incorrect]] provocations, have gained him fame, controversy and criticism both in and outside academia.<ref>{{cite web |title=Big Thinker: Slavoj Žižek |url=https://ethics.org.au/big-thinker-slavoj-zizek/ |website=The Ethics Centre |date=16 March 2022 |access-date=8 June 2022 |archive-date=28 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220328090730/https://ethics.org.au/big-thinker-slavoj-zizek/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
==Life and
===Early life===
Žižek was born in [[Ljubljana]], [[Socialist Republic of Slovenia|PR Slovenia]], [[Yugoslavia]], into a middle-class family.<ref name="mladina.si">{{cite web |url=http://www.mladina.si/tednik/200442/clanek/nar-kdo_je_kdaj--ursa_matos/ |trans-title=Who's When: Slavoj Žižek. The Last of the Marxists who made Pop from Philosophy and Philosophy from Pop |title=Kdo je kdaj: Slavoj Žižek. Tisti poslednji marksist, ki je iz filozofije naredil pop in iz popa filozofijo |publisher=Mladina |date=24 October 2004 |access-date=13 August 2010 |language=sl |archive-date=10 December 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081210034440/http://www.mladina.si/tednik/200442/clanek/nar-kdo_je_kdaj--ursa_matos/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> His father Jože Žižek was an economist and civil servant from the region of [[Prekmurje]] in eastern Slovenia. His mother Vesna, a native of the [[Gorizia Hills]] in the [[Slovenian Littoral]], was an accountant in a state enterprise. His parents were [[Atheism|atheists]].<ref>''Slovenski biografski leksikon'' (Ljubljana: [[Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts|SAZU]], 1991), XV. edition</ref> He spent most of his childhood in the coastal town of [[Portorož]], where he was exposed to Western film, theory and popular culture.<ref name="iep.utm.edu"/><ref name=slovenskapomlad>{{cite web |url=http://www.slovenskapomlad.si/2?id=20 |title=Slovenska pomlad: Slavoj Žižek (Webpage run by the National Museum of Modern History in Ljubljana) |publisher=Slovenskapomlad.si |date=29 September 1988 |access-date=4 June 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111003180230/http://www.slovenskapomlad.si/2?id=20 |archive-date=3 October 2011}}</ref> When Žižek was a teenager his family moved back to Ljubljana where he attended [[Bežigrad High School]].<ref name=slovenskapomlad/> Originally wanting to become a filmmaker himself, he abandoned these ambitions and chose to pursue philosophy instead.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Down with ideology|website = [[YouTube]]| date=18 January 2019 |url=https://youtube.com/watch?v=Zm5tpQp6sT4| archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211031/Zm5tpQp6sT4| url-status=live | archive-date=2021-10-31}}{{cbignore}}</ref>
===Education===
In 1967, during an era of [[liberalization]] in [[Titoism|Titoist]] Yugoslavia, Žižek enrolled at the [[University of Ljubljana]] and studied philosophy and sociology.<ref name="lacan.com">Tony Meyers [http://www.lacan.com/zizekchro1.htm Slavoj Zizek - His Life] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210513103155/http://www.lacan.com/zizekchro1.htm |date=13 May 2021 }} lacan.com, from: Slavoj Zizek, London: Routledge, 2003.</ref>
Žižek had already begun reading French [[Structuralism|structuralists]] prior to entering university, and in 1967 he published the first translation of a text by [[Jacques Derrida]] into Slovenian.<ref name="mladina.si 42">{{cite web |url= http://www.mladina.si/tednik/200442/clanek/nar-kdo_je_kdaj--ursa_matos/ |title= Tednik, številka 42, Slavoj Žižek |publisher= Mladina.Si |date= 24 October 2004 |access-date= 13 August 2010 |archive-date= 10 December 2008 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20081210034440/http://www.mladina.si/tednik/200442/clanek/nar-kdo_je_kdaj--ursa_matos/ |url-status= dead }}</ref> Žižek frequented the circles of dissident intellectuals, including the [[Martin Heidegger|Heideggerian]] philosophers [[Tine Hribar]] and [[Ivo Urbančič]],<ref name="mladina.si 42"/> and published articles in alternative magazines, such as ''[[Praxis School|Praxis]]'', ''Tribuna'' and ''Problemi'', which he also edited.<ref name=slovenskapomlad/> In 1971 he accepted a job as an assistant researcher with the promise of [[tenure]], but was dismissed after his Master's thesis was denounced by the authorities as being "non-Marxist".<ref name="p37">Žižek's response to the article "Če sem v kaj resnično zaljubljena, sem v življenje Sobotna priloga Dela, p. 37 (19.1. 2008)</ref> He graduated from the University of Ljubljana in 1981 with a [[Doctor of Arts]] in Philosophy for his dissertation entitled ''The Theoretical and Practical Relevance of French Structuralism''.<ref name="lacan.com"/> He spent the next few years in what was described as "professional wilderness", also fulfilling his legal duty of undertaking a year-long [[national service]] in the [[Yugoslav People's Army]] in [[Karlovac]].<ref name="lacan.com"/>
===Academic career===
During the 1980s, Žižek edited and translated [[Jacques Lacan]], [[Sigmund Freud]], and [[Louis Althusser]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.dskp-drustvo.si/prevajalci.php |title=Prevajalci – Društvo slovenskih književnih prevajalcev |publisher=Dskp-drustvo.si |access-date=7 January 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120105042135/http://www.dskp-drustvo.si/prevajalci.php |archive-date=5 January 2012}}</ref> He used Lacan's work to interpret [[Hegelianism|Hegelian]] and Marxist philosophy.{{citation needed|date=June 2022}}
In 1986, Žižek completed a second doctorate ([[Doctor of Philosophy]] in [[psychoanalysis]]) at the [[University of Paris VIII]] under [[Jacques-Alain Miller]], entitled "La philosophie entre le symptôme et le fantasme".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Žižek |first1=Slavoj |title=Le plus sublime des hystériques |date=1988 |publisher=Distribution, Distique. |___location=Paris |page=10 | language=fr}}</ref>
Žižek wrote the introduction to Slovene translations of [[G. K. Chesterton]]'s and [[John le Carré]]'s detective novels.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TsDgpEkMGdcC&pg=PA10 |title=Zizek: A Guide for the Perplexed|author=Sean Sheehan|publisher=[[Continuum International Publishing Group]] |page=10|year=2012|isbn=978-1441180872}}</ref>
In 1988, he published his first book dedicated entirely to [[film theory]], ''Pogled s strani''.<ref>[https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/440170467 Pogled s strani at worldcat.org]</ref> The following year, he achieved international recognition as a [[Social theory|social theorist]] with the 1989 publication of his first book in English, ''The Sublime Object of Ideology''.<ref name="Britannica">{{cite web|url=http://www.britannica.com/biography/Slavoj-Zizek|title=Slavoj Zizek - Slovene philosopher and cultural theorist|date=29 April 2023|access-date=27 September 2015|archive-date=16 March 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220316200721/https://www.britannica.com/biography/Slavoj-Zizek|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="iep.utm.edu">{{cite encyclopedia |title=Slavoj Žižek |first=Matthew |last=Sharpe |encyclopedia=The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |issn=2161-0002 |url=http://www.iep.utm.edu/zizek/ |access-date=27 September 2015 |archive-date=22 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220622083116/http://www.iep.utm.edu/zizek/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
Žižek has been publishing in journals such as ''[[Lacanian Ink]]'' and ''[[In These Times (publication)|In These Times]]'' in the United States, the ''[[New Left Review]]'' and ''[[The London Review of Books]]'' in the United Kingdom, and with the Slovenian [[left-liberal]] magazine ''[[Mladina]]'' and newspapers ''[[Dnevnik (Slovenia)|Dnevnik]]'' and ''[[Delo (newspaper)|Delo]]''. He also cooperates with the Polish leftist magazine ''[[Krytyka Polityczna]]'', regional southeast European left-wing journal ''[[Novi Plamen]]'', and serves on the editorial board of the psychoanalytical journal ''Problemi''.<ref name="Editorial Staff - Problemi International">{{cite web |url=https://problemi.si/editorial-staff/ |title=Editorial Staff - Problemi International |access-date=25 October 2021 |archive-date=25 October 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211025164847/https://problemi.si/editorial-staff/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Žižek is a series editor of the [[Northwestern University Press]] series Diaeresis that publishes works that "deal not only with philosophy, but also will intervene at the levels of ideology critique, politics, and art theory".<ref>{{cite web|title=Diaeresis series page|url=http://www.nupress.northwestern.edu/content/diaeresis|website=Northwestern University Press|access-date=28 January 2017|archive-date=2 February 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170202051054/http://www.nupress.northwestern.edu/content/diaeresis|url-status=live}}</ref>
In 2012, ''[[Foreign Policy]]'' listed Žižek on its list of Top 100 Global Thinkers, calling him "a celebrity philosopher",<ref name="The FP Top 100 Global Thinkers">{{cite web |date=26 November 2012 |title=The FP Top 100 Global Thinkers |url=https://foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/11/26/the_fp_100_global_thinkers?page=0,55 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121130221322/http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/11/26/the_fp_100_global_thinkers?page=0,33 |archive-date=30 November 2012 |access-date=28 November 2012 |work=Foreign Policy |df=dmy-all}}</ref> while elsewhere he has been dubbed the "[[Elvis Presley|Elvis]] of cultural theory"<ref name="Zizek Journal">{{cite web |title=International Journal of Žižek Studies, home page |url=http://zizekstudies.org/index.php/ijzs/index |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180103211107/http://zizekstudies.org/index.php/IJZS/index |archive-date=3 January 2018 |access-date=27 December 2011}}</ref> and "the most dangerous philosopher in the [[western world|West]]".<ref>{{cite web |date=4 October 2013 |title=Slavoj Zizek - VICE - United Kingdom |work=VICE |url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/slavoj-zizek/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304084757/http://www.vice.com/en_uk/video/slavoj-zizek |archive-date=4 March 2016 |access-date=11 September 2017}}</ref> Žižek has been called "the leading Hegelian of our time",<ref>{{cite web |last1=Şahin |first1=Tuna |date=27 December 2021 |title=Slavoj Žižek: The Hegelian of Our Time |url=https://www.thenaszone.com/post/slavoj-%C5%BEi%C5%BEek-the-hegelian-of-our-time |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220907031913/https://www.thenaszone.com/post/slavoj-%C5%BEi%C5%BEek-the-hegelian-of-our-time |archive-date=7 September 2022 |access-date=4 May 2022}}</ref> and "the foremost exponent of Lacanian theory".<ref>McGowan, Todd (2013). "Hegel as Marxist: Žižek's Revision of German Idealism." In ''Žižek Now: Current Perspectives in Žižek Studies''. Cambridge: Polity Press. p. 42.</ref> A journal, the ''International Journal of Žižek Studies'', was founded by professors David J. Gunkel and Paul A. Taylor to engage with his work.<ref>{{cite web |title=About the Journal |url=http://zizekstudies.org/index.php/IJZS/about/editorialPolicies#focusAndScope |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220620134909/http://zizekstudies.org/index.php/IJZS/about/editorialPolicies#focusAndScope |archive-date=20 June 2022 |access-date=1 May 2019}}</ref>
===Political career===
In the late 1980s, Žižek came to public attention as a columnist for the alternative youth magazine ''[[Mladina]]'', which was critical of Tito's policies, Yugoslav politics, especially the [[militarization]] of society. He was a member of the [[League of Communists of Slovenia]] until October 1988, when he quit in protest against the [[JBTZ trial]] together with 32 other Slovenian intellectuals.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.slovenskapomlad.si/1?id=103 |title=Skupinski protestni izstop iz ZKS |date=28 October 1998 |publisher=Slovenska Pomlad |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111003180147/http://www.slovenskapomlad.si/1?id=103 |archive-date=3 October 2011 |language=sl }}</ref> Between 1988 and 1990, he was actively involved in several political and [[civil society]] movements which fought for the [[democratization]] of Slovenia, most notably the [[Committee for the Defence of Human Rights]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.slovenskapomlad.si/1?id=31&aofs=3 |title=Odbor za varstvo človekovih pravic |date=3 June 1998 |website=Slovenska Pomlad |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111003180306/http://www.slovenskapomlad.si/1?id=31&aofs=3 |archive-date=3 October 2011 |language=sl }}</ref> In the [[1990 Slovenian presidential election|first free elections]] in 1990, he ran as the [[Liberal Democracy of Slovenia|Liberal Democratic Party]]'s candidate for the former four-person collective presidency of Slovenia.<ref name="Britannica"/>
Žižek is a member of the [[Democracy in Europe Movement 2025]] (DiEM25) founded in 2016.<ref>{{cite web |title=Posts Tagged: slavoj zizek {{!}} DiEM25 |url=https://diem25.org/tag/slavoj-zizek/ |access-date=8 February 2024 }}</ref>
===Public life===
[[File:Slavoj Žižek 2011.jpg|alt=|thumb|Žižek speaking in 2011]]
In 2003, Žižek wrote text to accompany [[Bruce Weber (photographer)|Bruce Weber]]'s photographs in a catalog for [[Abercrombie & Fitch]]. Questioned as to the seemliness of a major intellectual writing ad copy, Žižek told ''[[The Boston Globe]]'', "If I were asked to choose between doing things like this to earn money and becoming fully employed as an American academic, kissing ass to get a tenured post, I would with pleasure choose writing for such journals!"<ref>Glenn, Joshua. "The Examined Life: Enjoy Your Chinos!", ''[[The Boston Globe]]''. 6 July 2003. H2.</ref>
Žižek and his thought have been the subject of several documentaries. The 1996 ''[[Liebe Dein Symptom wie Dich selbst!]]'' is a German documentary on him. In the 2004 ''[[The Reality of the Virtual]]'', Žižek gave an hour-long lecture on his interpretation of Lacan's tripartite thesis of the imaginary, the symbolic, and the real.<ref>{{Citation |title=Slavoj Zizek: The Reality of the Virtual | date=20 August 2012 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnTQhIRcrno |language=en |access-date=2022-08-23 |archive-date=23 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220823175906/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnTQhIRcrno |url-status=live }}</ref> ''[[Zizek!]]'' is a 2005 documentary by [[Astra Taylor]] on his philosophy. The 2006 ''[[The Pervert's Guide to Cinema]]'' and 2012 ''[[The Pervert's Guide to Ideology]]'' also portray Žižek's ideas and cultural criticism. ''[[Examined Life]]'' (2008) features Žižek speaking about his conception of [[ecology]] at a garbage dump. He was also featured in the 2011 ''[[Marx Reloaded]]'', directed by [[Jason Barker]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Schmitt |first=Peer |date=2011-04-08 |title=Falsche Freunde |url=https://www.jungewelt.de/artikel/162082.falsche-freunde.html |access-date=2022-08-23 |website=[[Junge Welt]] |language=de}}</ref>
''[[Foreign Policy (magazine)|Foreign Policy]]'' named Žižek one of its 2012 Top 100 Global Thinkers "for giving voice to an era of absurdity".<ref name="The FP Top 100 Global Thinkers"/>
In 2019, Žižek began hosting a mini-series called ''How to Watch the News with Slavoj Žižek'' on the [[RT (TV network)|RT network]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://czaskultury.pl/czytanki/koniec-niewinnosci/|title=Koniec niewinności|access-date=27 April 2021|archive-date=27 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210427151325/https://czaskultury.pl/czytanki/koniec-niewinnosci/|url-status=live}}</ref> In April, Žižek [[Peterson–Žižek debate|debated]] psychology professor [[Jordan Peterson]] at the [[Sony Centre for the Performing Arts|Sony Centre]] in [[Toronto|Toronto, Canada]] over [[happiness]] under [[capitalism]] versus [[Marxism]].<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2019/04/19/jordan-peterson-slavoj-zizek-each-draw-fans-at-sold-out-debate.html|title=Jordan Peterson, Slavoj Zizek each draw fans at sold-out debate|author1=Raju Mudhar|author2=Brendan Kennedy|date=19 April 2019|newspaper=Toronto Star|access-date=20 April 2019|archive-date=20 April 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190420020933/https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2019/04/19/jordan-peterson-slavoj-zizek-each-draw-fans-at-sold-out-debate.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/20/jordan-peterson-slavoj-zizek-happiness-capitalism-marxism|title=The 'debate of the century': what happened when Jordan Peterson debated Slavoj Žižek|author=Stephen Marche|date=20 April 2019|newspaper=The Guardian|access-date=20 April 2019|archive-date=20 April 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190420153957/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/20/jordan-peterson-slavoj-zizek-happiness-capitalism-marxism|url-status=live}}</ref>
==Personal life==
Žižek has been married four times and has two adult sons, Tim and Kostja. His second wife was Slovene philosopher and socio-legal theorist [[Renata Salecl]], fellow member of the [[Ljubljana school of psychoanalysis]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Myers |first1=Tony |title=Slavoj Žižek |date=2003 |publisher=Routledge |___location=London |isbn=1134504314 |page=8}}</ref> His third wife was Argentinian model and Lacanian scholar Analia Hounie, whom he married in 2005.<ref>{{cite web |title=Tajna poroka Slavoja Žižka s 30 let mlajšo novinarko [ |url=https://www.rtvslo.si/zabava-in-slog/popkultura/druzabno/tajna-poroka-slavoja-zizka-s-30-let-mlajso-novinarko/312112 |website=RTVSLO |access-date=14 October 2022 |archive-date=14 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221014143844/https://www.rtvslo.si/zabava-in-slog/popkultura/druzabno/tajna-poroka-slavoja-zizka-s-30-let-mlajso-novinarko/312112 |url-status=live }}; {{cite web |last1=Jeffries |first1=Stuart |title=A life in writing: Slavoj Žižek |url=https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2011/jul/15/slavoj-zizek-interview-life-writing |website=Guardian |date=15 July 2011 |access-date=14 October 2022 |archive-date=14 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221014143841/https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2011/jul/15/slavoj-zizek-interview-life-writing |url-status=live }}</ref> Currently, he is married to Slovene journalist, author and philosopher, [[Jela Krečič]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Jela Krečič |url=https://www.peterowen.com/shop/jela-krecic/ |website=Peter Owen |access-date=14 October 2022 |archive-date=14 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221014143844/https://www.peterowen.com/shop/jela-krecic/ |url-status=usurped }}</ref>
In early 2018, Žižek experienced [[Bell's palsy]] on the right side of his face. He went on to give several lectures and interviews with this condition; on March 9 of that year, during a lecture on political revolutions in London, he commented on the treatment he had been receiving, and used his paralysis as a metaphor for political idleness.<ref>{{Citation |title=Slavoj Žižek - Like a Thief in the Night: A Question of Manners (Mar. 2018) | date=13 March 2018 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MWO-hZfZDQ&t=176s |access-date=2023-04-04 |language=en |archive-date=4 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230404161046/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MWO-hZfZDQ&t=176s |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Citation |title=Chef Slavoj (Žižek) cooks some capitalism with a hint of failure of the left | date=11 March 2018 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzDu5P9M6F4 |access-date=2023-04-04 |language=en |archive-date=4 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230404210952/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzDu5P9M6F4 |url-status=live }}</ref>
===Taste===
In the [[The Sight & Sound Greatest Films of All Time 2012|2012 ''Sight & Sound'' critics' poll]], Žižek listed his 10 favourite films: ''[[3:10 to Yuma (1957 film)|3:10 to Yuma]]'', ''[[Dune (1984 film)|Dune]]'', ''[[The Fountainhead (film)|The Fountainhead]]'', ''[[Hero (2002 film)|Hero]]'', ''[[Hitman (2007 film)|Hitman]]'', ''[[Nightmare Alley (1947 film)|Nightmare Alley]]'', ''[[On Dangerous Ground]]'', ''[[Opfergang]]'', ''[[The Sound of Music (film)|The Sound of Music]]'', and ''[[We the Living (film)|We the Living]]''. On this list, he clarified: "I opted for pure madness: the list contains only 'guilty pleasures'".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www2.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/sightandsoundpoll2012/voter/94|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160212204753/http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/sightandsoundpoll2012/voter/94|url-status=dead|archive-date=12 February 2016|title=Slavoj Zizek |website=www2.bfi.org.uk}}</ref> In his tour of [[The Criterion Collection]] closet, he chose ''[[Trouble in Paradise (1932 film)|Trouble in Paradise]]'', ''[[Sweet Smell of Success]]'', ''[[Picnic at Hanging Rock (film)|Picnic at Hanging Rock]]'', ''[[Murmur of the Heart]]'', ''[[The Joke (film)|The Joke]]'', ''[[The Ice Storm (film)|The Ice Storm]]'', ''[[Great Expectations (1946 film)|Great Expectations]]'', [[Roberto Rossellini]]'s history films, ''[[City Lights]]'', a box set of [[Carl Theodor Dreyer]]'s films, ''[[Y tu mamá también]]'' and ''[[Antichrist (film)|Antichrist]]''.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Žižek |first1=Slavoj |title=DVD Picks |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqpxT_iJ8Mc&t=2s |website=YouTube |date=26 September 2014 |access-date=17 May 2022 |archive-date=17 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220517203848/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqpxT_iJ8Mc&t=2s |url-status=live }}</ref>
In an article called "My Favourite Classics", Žižek states that [[Arnold Schoenberg]]'s ''[[Gurre-Lieder]]'' is the piece of music he would take to a desert island. He goes on to list other favourites, including [[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven]]'s ''[[Fidelio]]'', [[Franz Schubert|Schubert]]'s ''[[Winterreise]]'', [[Modest Mussorgsky|Mussorgsky]]'s ''[[Khovanshchina]]'' and [[Gaetano Donizetti|Donizetti]]'s ''[[L'elisir d'amore]]''. He expresses a particular love for [[Richard Wagner|Wagner]], particularly ''[[Das Rheingold]]'' and ''[[Parsifal]]''. He ranks Schoenberg over [[Igor Stravinsky|Stravinsky]], and insists on [[Hanns Eisler|Eisler]]'s importance among Schoenberg's followers.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Žižek |first1=Slavoj |title=My Favourite Classics |journal=International Journal of Žižek Studies |date=2017 |volume=11 |issue=3 |url=http://zizekstudies.org/index.php/IJZS/article/view/1034/1051 |access-date=17 May 2022 |archive-date=24 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231024024540/http://zizekstudies.org/index.php/IJZS/article/view/1034/1051 |url-status=live }}</ref>
Žižek often lists [[Franz Kafka]], [[Samuel Beckett]] and [[Andrei Platonov]] as his "three absolute masters of 20th-century literature".<ref name="webchat">{{cite web |last1=Žižek |first1=Slavoj |title=Slavoj Žižek webchat – as it happened |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/live/2014/oct/06/slavoj-zizek-webchat-absolute-recoil |website=Guardian |date=8 October 2014 |access-date=17 May 2022 |archive-date=17 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220517203119/https://www.theguardian.com/books/live/2014/oct/06/slavoj-zizek-webchat-absolute-recoil |url-status=live }}</ref> He ranks/prefers [[Varlam Shalamov]] over [[Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]], [[Marina Tsvetaeva]] and [[Osip Mandelstam]] over [[Anna Akhmatova]],<ref>{{cite web |last1=Žižek |first1=Slavoj and Stephen Kotkin |title=Stalin: Paradoxes of Power |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm7mb9eHg24&t=2760s |website=YouTube |date=28 November 2016 |access-date=17 May 2022 |archive-date=17 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220517203119/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm7mb9eHg24&t=2760s |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Daphne du Maurier]] over [[Virginia Woolf]], and [[Samuel Beckett]] over [[James Joyce]].<ref name="webchat"/> His theories have been applied to studying a variety of literature, including ''[[Finnegans Wake]]''.<ref>Frazer, Michael. "Closer to Consciousness: Waking as the Žižekian Event in" Finnegans Wake"." ''James Joyce Quarterly'' (2015): 95-110.</ref>
==Thought and positions==
Žižek and his thought have been described by many commentators as "[[Hegelianism|Hegelo]]-[[Lacanianism|Lacanian]]".<ref name="Humphreys" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Butler |first=Rex |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xr5cCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA14 |title=The Žižek Dictionary |date=2015-08-12 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-32443-0 |pages=14 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Barber |first=Daniel Colucciello |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1X9JAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT27 |title=On Diaspora: Christianity, Religion, and Secularity |date=2011-11-01 |publisher=Wipf and Stock Publishers |isbn=978-1-62189-103-1 |pages=27 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Vighi |first=Fabio |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QteoAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA18 |title=Critical Theory and Film: Rethinking Ideology Through Film Noir |date=2012-05-03 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-4411-3912-2 |pages=18 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Vardoulakis |first=Dimitris |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=naBlCKjmKfsC&pg=PA225 |title=Spinoza Now |date=2011-06-29 |publisher=University of Minnesota Press |isbn=978-0-8166-7280-6 |pages=225 |language=en}}</ref> In his early career, Žižek claimed "a theoretical space moulded by three centres of gravity: [[Hegelian Dialectic|Hegelian dialectics]], [[Lacanianism|Lacanian psychoanalytic theory]], and contemporary criticism of [[ideology]]", designating "the theory of [[Jacques Lacan]]" as the fundamental element.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Žižek |first1=Slavoj |title=For They Know Not What They Do |date=1991 |publisher=Verso |___location=London & New York |page=2}}</ref> In 2010, Žižek instead claimed that for him Hegel is more fundamental than Lacan—"Even Lacan is just a tool for me to read Hegel. For me, always it is Hegel, Hegel, Hegel."<ref>{{cite web |last1=O'Hagan |first1=Sean |title=Slavoj Žižek: interview |url=https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2010/jun/27/slavoj-zizek-living-end-times |website=Guardian |date=26 June 2010 |access-date=6 May 2022 |archive-date=17 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220617191634/https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2010/jun/27/slavoj-zizek-living-end-times |url-status=live }}</ref>—while in 2019, he claimed that "For me, in some sense, all of philosophy happened in [the] fifty years" between [[Immanuel Kant]]'s ''[[Critique of Pure Reason]]'' (1781) and the death of [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel]] (1831).<ref>{{cite web |last1=Žižek |first1=Slavoj |title=Slavoj Žižek on what really makes him mad |url=https://blog.oup.com/2019/09/slavoj-zizek-on-what-really-makes-him-mad/ |website=Oxford University Press |date=17 September 2019 |access-date=18 May 2022 |archive-date=18 September 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190918141717/https://blog.oup.com/2019/09/slavoj-zizek-on-what-really-makes-him-mad/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Alongside his academic, theoretical works, Žižek is a prolific commentator on current affairs and contemporary political debates.
===
For Žižek, although a [[Subject (philosophy)|subject]] may take on a symbolic (social) position, it can never be reduced to this attempted symbolisation, since the very "taking on" of this position implies a separate 'I', beyond the symbolic, that does the taking on. Yet, under scrutiny, nothing positive can be said about this subject, this 'I', that eludes symbolisation; it cannot be discerned as anything but "that which cannot be symbolised". Thus, without the initial, attempted, failed symbolisation, subjectivity cannot present itself. As Žižek writes in his first book in English: "the subject of the signifier is a retroactive effect of the failure of its own representation; that is why the failure of representation is the only way to represent it adequately."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Žižek |first1=Slavoj |title=The Sublime Object of Ideology |date=1989 |publisher=Verso |___location=London & New York |isbn=0860919714 |page=175}}</ref>
Žižek attributes this position on the subject to [[Hegel]], particularly his description of man as "the night of the world",<ref>{{cite book |last1=Žižek |first1=Slavoj |title=The Parallax View |date=2006 |publisher=MIT Press |___location=Cambridge, MA |isbn=9780262240512 |page=22}}</ref> and to [[Lacan]], with his description of the barred, split subject, who he sees as developing the [[Cartesianism|Cartesian]] notion of the [[Cogito, ergo sum|cogito]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Žižek |first1=Slavoj |title=The Sublime Object of Ideology |date=1989 |publisher=Verso |___location=London & New York |isbn=0860919714 |page=72}}</ref> According to Žižek, these thinkers, in insisting on the role of the subject, run counter to "[[Culturalism|culturalist]]" or "[[Historicism|historicist]]" positions held by thinkers such as [[Louis Althusser]] and [[Michel Foucault]], which posit that "subjects" are bound by and reducible to their historical/cultural(/symbolic) context.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Žižek |first1=Slavoj and Sbriglia, Russell |title=Subject Matters |date=2020 |publisher=Northwestern University Press |___location=Evanston |pages=3–21}}</ref>
===Political theory===
====Ideology====
Žižek's Lacanian-informed theory of [[ideology]] is one of his major contributions to political theory; his first book in English, ''[[The Sublime Object of Ideology]]'', and the documentary ''[[The Pervert's Guide to Ideology]]'', in which he stars, are among the well-known places in which it is discussed. Žižek believes that ideology has been frequently misinterpreted as dualistic and, according to him, this misinterpreted dualism posits that there is a real world of material relations and objects outside of oneself, which is accessible to reason.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=McManus |first=Matt |date=2019-04-30 |title=The Politics of Slavoj Zizek |url=https://areomagazine.com/2019/04/30/the-politics-of-slavoj-zizek/ |access-date=2022-08-23 |website=Areo Magazine |language=en-US |archive-date=23 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220823173430/https://areomagazine.com/2019/04/30/the-politics-of-slavoj-zizek/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
For Žižek, as for Marx, ideology is made up of fictions that structure political life; in Lacan's terms, ideology belongs to the [[symbolic order]]. Žižek argues that these fictions are primarily maintained at an unconscious level, rather than a conscious one. Since, according to [[psychoanalytic theory]], the unconscious can determine one's actions directly, bypassing one's conscious awareness (as in [[Freudian slip|parapraxes]]), ideology can be expressed in one's behaviour, regardless of one's conscious beliefs. Hence, Žižek breaks with orthodox Marxist accounts that view ideology purely as a system of mistaken beliefs (see [[False consciousness]]). Drawing on [[Peter Sloterdijk]]'s ''[[Critique of Cynical Reason]]'', Žižek argues that adopting a cynical perspective is not enough to escape ideology, since, according to Žižek, even though postmodern [[Subject (philosophy)|subjects]] are consciously cynical about the political situation, they continue to reinforce it through their behaviour.<ref>{{cite book |last=Žižek |first=Slavoj |year=1989 |title=The Sublime Object of Ideology |place=London & New York |publisher=Verso |chapter=Chapter 1}}</ref>
===
Žižek claims that (a sense of) political freedom is sustained by a deeper unfreedom, at least under [[Economic liberalism|liberal capitalism]]. In a 2002 article, Žižek endorses [[Vladimir Lenin|Lenin]]'s distinction between formal and actual freedom, claiming that liberal society only contains formal freedom, "freedom of choice ''within'' the coordinates of the existing power relations", while prohibiting actual freedom, "the site of an intervention that undermines these very coordinates."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Žižek |first1=Slavoj |title=A Plea For Leninist Intolerance |journal=Critical Inquiry |date=2002 |volume=28 |issue=2 |pages=542–544|doi=10.1086/449051 |s2cid=162381806 }}</ref> In an oft-quoted passage from a book published in the same year, he writes that, in these conditions of liberal censorship, "we 'feel free' because we lack the very language to articulate our unfreedom".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Žižek |first1=Slavoj |title=Welcome to the Desert of the Real! |date=2002 |publisher=Verso |___location=London & New York |page=2}}</ref> In a 2019 article, he writes that Marx "made a valuable point with his claim that the market economy combines in a unique way political and personal freedom with social unfreedom: personal freedom (freely selling myself on the market) is the very form of my unfreedom."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Žižek |first1=Slavoj |title=Hegel, Retroactivity & The End of History |journal=Continental Thought & Theory |date=2019 |volume=2 |issue=4 |page=9}}</ref> However, in 2014, he rejects the "pseudo-Marxist" total derision of 'formal freedom', claiming that it is necessary for critique: "When we are formally free, only then we become aware how limited this freedom actually is."<ref name="webchat"/>
Žižek co-signed a petition condemning the "use of disproportionate force and retaliatory brutality by the [[Hong Kong Police Force|Hong Kong Police]] against students in university campuses in Hong Kong" during the [[2019–2020 Hong Kong protests]]. The petition concludes with the statement: "We believe the defence of [[academic freedom]], the [[freedom of speech]], [[freedom of the press]], [[freedom of assembly]] and [[Freedom of association|association]], and the responsibility to protect the safety of our students are universal causes common to all."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.hongkongwatch.org/all-posts/2019/11/26/renowned-academics-among-over-3700-supporting-the-petition-by-global-academics-against-police-brutality-in-hong-kong|title=Renowned Academics Among Over 3,700 Supporting The 'Petition by Global Academics Against Police Brutality in Hong Kong'|work=Hong Kong Watch|date=2019-11-26|access-date=31 August 2023|archive-date=31 August 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230831113759/https://www.hongkongwatch.org/all-posts/2019/11/26/renowned-academics-among-over-3700-supporting-the-petition-by-global-academics-against-police-brutality-in-hong-kong|url-status=live}}</ref>
===Theology===
Žižek has asserted that "[[Atheism]] is a legacy worth fighting for" in ''[[The New York Times]]''.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Žižek |first1=Slavoj |title=Atheism is a legacy worth fighting for Slavoj Zizek |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/13/opinion/atheism-is-a-legacy-worth-fighting-for.html |website=The New York Times |date=13 March 2006 |access-date=18 May 2022 |archive-date=28 November 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161128135937/https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/13/opinion/atheism-is-a-legacy-worth-fighting-for.html |url-status=live }}</ref> However, he nonetheless finds extensive conceptual value in [[Christianity]], particularly [[Protestantism]]: the subtitle of his 2000 book ''The Fragile Absolute'' is "Or, Why Is the Christian Legacy Worth Fighting For?". Hence, he labels his position '[[Christian Atheism]]',<ref>{{cite web |last1=Žižek |first1=Slavoj (2017) |title=Christian Atheism |date=10 September 2017 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UOM3C3q7II |publisher=YouTube (European Graduate School Video Lectures) |access-date=4 May 2022 |archive-date=4 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220504152841/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UOM3C3q7II |url-status=live }}</ref> and has written about theology at length.<ref>See his ''The Fragile Absolute'', ''The Monstrosity of Christ'', ''The Puppet and the Dwarf'', and ''On Belief''.</ref>
In ''[[The Pervert's Guide to Ideology]]'', Žižek suggests that "the only way to be an Atheist is through Christianity", since, he claims, atheism often fails to escape the religious paradigm by remaining faithful to an external guarantor of meaning, simply switching God for natural necessity or evolution. Christianity, on the other hand, in the doctrine of [[Incarnation (Christianity)|the incarnation]], brings God down from the 'beyond' and onto earth, into human affairs; for Žižek, this paradigm is more authentically godless, since the external guarantee is abolished.<ref>Fiennes, Sophie (dir.). (2012). ''The Pervert's Guide to Ideology''. London: P Guide Productions.</ref>
===Communism===
Although sometimes adopting the title of 'radical leftist',<ref name="http">{{cite web |url=http://www.democracynow.org/2009/10/15/slovenian_philosopher_slavoj_zizek_on_the |title=Slovenian Philosopher Slavoj Zizek on Capitalism, Healthcare, Latin American "Populism" and the "Farcical" Financial Crisis |publisher=Democracynow.org |access-date=13 August 2010 |archive-date=11 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220711165755/https://www.democracynow.org/2009/10/15/slovenian_philosopher_slavoj_zizek_on_the |url-status=live }}</ref> Žižek also identifies as a [[Communism|communist]]. However, he rejects 20th century communism as a "total failure", and has stated, "The communism of the 20th century, more specifically all the network of phenomena we refer to as [[Stalinism]] are{{Sic}} maybe the worst ideological, political, ethical, social (and so on) catastrophe in the history of humanity."<ref>{{cite web |last1=Žižek |first1=Slavoj |title=20th Century Communism |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThTJBKYPiNo&t=153s |website=YouTube |date=13 April 2022 |access-date=7 May 2022 |archive-date=13 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220613131415/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThTJBKYPiNo&t=153s |url-status=live }}</ref> Žižek justifies this choice by claiming that only the term 'communism' signals a genuine step outside of the existing order, in part since the term '[[socialism]]' no longer has radical enough implications, and means nothing more than that one "care[s] for society."<ref>{{cite web |last1=Žižek |first1=Slavoj and Tyler Cowen |title=Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism |url=https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/slavoj-zizek/ |website=Conversations With Tyler |date=7 July 2018 |access-date=7 May 2022 |archive-date=14 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220614152849/https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/slavoj-zizek/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
In ''[[Marx Reloaded]]'', Žižek rejects both 20th-century [[totalitarianism]] and "[[Spontaneous order|spontaneous]] local [[Self-organization|self-organisation]], [[direct democracy]], [[Workers' council|councils]], and so on". There, he endorses a definition of communism as "a society where you, everyone would be allowed to dwell in his or her stupidity", an idea with which he credits [[Fredric Jameson]] as the inspiration.<ref>Barker, Josef (dir.) (2011). Marx Reloaded.</ref>
Žižek has labelled himself a "communist in a qualified sense"<ref name="democracynow.org">[http://www.democracynow.org/2008/3/11/everybody_in_the_world_except_us ''Democracy Now!'' television program online transcript] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220423203148/https://www.democracynow.org/2008/3/11/everybody_in_the_world_except_us |date=23 April 2022 }}, 11 March 2008.</ref> and has advocated for a "moderately conservative Communism".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Slavoj Žižek: We Need a Socialist Reset, Not a Corporate "Great Reset" |url=https://jacobin.com/2020/12/slavoj-zizek-socialism-great-reset |access-date=2023-11-02 |website=jacobin.com |language=en-US |archive-date=2 November 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231102184106/https://jacobin.com/2020/12/slavoj-zizek-socialism-great-reset |url-status=live }}</ref> When he spoke at a conference on ''The Idea of Communism'', he applied (in qualified form) the 'communist' label to the [[Occupy Wall Street]] protestors:
{{blockquote|They are not communists, if 'communism' means the system which deservedly collapsed in 1990—and remember that the communists who are still in power today run the most ruthless capitalism (in China). ... The only sense in which the protestors are 'communists' is that they care for the commons—the commons of nature, [[Knowledge commons|of knowledge]]—which are threatened by the system. They are dismissed as dreamers, but the true dreamers are those who think that things can go on indefinitely the way they are now, with just a few cosmetic changes. They are not dreamers; they are awakening from a dream which is turning into a nightmare. They are not destroying anything; they are reacting to how the system is gradually destroying itself.<ref>{{cite book|last=Slavoj |first=Žižek |year=2013 |chapter=Answers Without Questions |editor-last=Slavoj |editor-first=Žižek |title=The Idea of Communism |volume=2 |place=London & New York |publisher=Verso |pages=198–9}}</ref>}}
===
In May 2013, during [[Subversive Festival]], Žižek commented: "If they don't support [[SYRIZA]], then, in my vision of the democratic future, all these people will get from me [is] a first-class one-way ticket to [a] [[gulag]]." In response, the center-right [[New Democracy (Greece)|New Democracy]] party claimed Žižek's comments should be understood literally, not ironically.<ref name="Mionis interview">{{cite news |last=Mionis |first=Sabby |date=6 March 2012 |title=Israel must fight to keep neo-Nazis out of Greece's government |url=https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/israel-must-fight-to-keep-neo-nazis-out-of-greece-s-government-1.416802 |newspaper=Haaretz |access-date=6 March 2012 |archive-date=6 March 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120306212641/http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/israel-must-fight-to-keep-neo-nazis-out-of-greece-s-government-1.416802 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Slovenian philosopher Zizek proposes 'gulag' for those who do not support SYRIZA |url=http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_20/05/2013_499789 |date=20 May 2013 |access-date=20 May 2013 |archive-date=7 June 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130607112545/http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_20/05/2013_499789 |url-status=live }}</ref>
Just before the [[2017 French presidential election]], Žižek stated that one could not choose between [[Emmanuel Macron|Macron]] and [[Marine Le Pen|Le Pen]], arguing that the [[neoliberalism]] of Macron just gives rise to [[neo-fascism|neofascism]] anyway. This was in response to many on the left calling for support for Macron to prevent a Le Pen victory.<ref>{{cite web |last=Žižek |first=Slavoj |date=3 May 2017 |title=Don't Believe the Liberals – There Is No Real Choice between Le Pen and Macron. |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/french-elections-marine-le-pen-emmanuel-macron-no-real-choice-a7714911.html |work=The Independent |access-date=19 June 2018 |archive-date=15 June 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170615015040/http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/french-elections-marine-le-pen-emmanuel-macron-no-real-choice-a7714911.html |url-status=live }}</ref>
In 2022, Žižek expressed his support for the Slovenian political party [[The Left (Slovenia)|Levica]] (The Left) at its 5th annual conference.<ref>{{Citation |title=Slavoj Zizek gives support to Levica and comments on the Ukrainian crisis |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpE6D1c8CZw |website=YouTube |language=en |date=15 March 2022 |access-date=3 April 2022 |archive-date=3 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220403014106/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpE6D1c8CZw |url-status=live }}</ref>
====Support for Donald Trump's election====
In a 2016 interview with [[Channel 4]], Žižek said that were he American, he would vote for [[Donald Trump]] in the [[2016 United States presidential election]]:
{{blockquote|I'm horrified at him [Trump]. I'm just thinking that [[Hillary Clinton|Hillary]] is the true danger. ... if Trump wins, both big parties, Republicans and Democratics, would have to return to basics, rethink themselves, and maybe some things can happen there. That's my desperate, very desperate hope, that if Trump wins—listen, America is not a dictatorial state, he will not introduce Fascism—but it will be a kind of big awakening. New political processes will be set in motion, will be triggered. But I'm well aware that things are very dangerous here ... I'm just aware that Hillary stands for this absolute inertia, the most dangerous one. Because she is a cold warrior, and so on, connected with banks, pretending to be socially progressive.<ref>{{cite web |title=Slavoj Žižek: 'I would vote Trump' |url=https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10154211377601939 |via=Facebook |publisher=Channel 4 |access-date=18 May 2022 |archive-date=20 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210120145722/https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10154211377601939 |url-status=live }}</ref>}}
These views were derisively characterised as [[accelerationist]] by ''Left Voice'',<ref>{{cite web |last1=Steinman |first1=Ian |date=4 November 2016 |title=From Farce to Tragedy: Žižek Endorses Trump |url=https://www.leftvoice.org/from-farce-to-tragedy-zizek-endorses-trump/ |website=Left Voice |access-date=18 May 2022 |archive-date=22 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220622140145/https://www.leftvoice.org/from-farce-to-tragedy-zizek-endorses-trump/ |url-status=live }}</ref> and were labelled "regressive" by [[Noam Chomsky]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Noam Chomsky speaks with 'Upfront' - slams media coverage, criticises third party voters |url=https://network.aljazeera.net/pressroom/noam-chomsky-speaks-%E2%80%98upfront%E2%80%99-slams-media-coverage-criticises-third-party-voters |website=Al Jazeera |date=24 November 2016 |access-date=18 May 2022 |archive-date=20 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220620182428/https://network.aljazeera.net/pressroom/noam-chomsky-speaks-%E2%80%98upfront%E2%80%99-slams-media-coverage-criticises-third-party-voters |url-status=live }}</ref>
In 2019 and 2020, Žižek defended his views,<ref>{{cite web |last1=Žižek |first1=Slavoj |date=26 June 2019 |title=Voices Was I right to back Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton? Absolutely |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/trump-hillary-clinton-populist-right-left-democratic-party-civil-war-a8975121.html |website=The Independent |access-date=18 May 2022 |archive-date=4 July 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190704121910/https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/trump-hillary-clinton-populist-right-left-democratic-party-civil-war-a8975121.html |url-status=live }}</ref> saying that Trump's election "created, for the first time in I don't know how many decades, a true American left", citing the boost it gave [[Bernie Sanders]] and [[Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez]].<ref name=Humphreys>{{cite web |last1=Humphreys |first1=Joe |date=1 August 2020 |title=Slavoj Žižek: 'Joe Biden is long-term the same catastrophe as Trump' |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/slavoj-%C5%BEi%C5%BEek-joe-biden-is-long-term-the-same-catastrophe-as-trump-1.4312913 |website=Irish Times |access-date=18 May 2022 |archive-date=13 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220613130609/https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/slavoj-%C5%BEi%C5%BEek-joe-biden-is-long-term-the-same-catastrophe-as-trump-1.4312913 |url-status=live }}</ref>
However, regarding the [[2020 United States presidential election]], Žižek reported himself "tempted by changing his position", saying "Trump is a little too much".<ref name=Humphreys/> In another interview, he stood by his 2016 "wager" that Trump's election would lead to a socialist reaction ("maybe I was right"), but claimed that "now with coronavirus: no, no—no Trump. ... difficult as it is for me to say this, but now I would say '[[Biden]] better than Trump', although he is far from ideal."<ref>{{cite web |author=Valuetainment |date=16 May 2020 |title=Communist Philosopher Debates Capitalism - Slavoj Žižek |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHH96Fc0_lo&t=0s |website=YouTube |access-date=18 May 2022 |archive-date=18 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220518165647/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHH96Fc0_lo&t=0s |url-status=live }}</ref> In his 2022 book, ''Heaven in Disorder'', Žižek continued to express a preference for Joe Biden over Donald Trump, stating "Trump was corroding the ethical substance of our lives", while Biden lies and represents big capital more politely.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Žižek |first1=Slavoj |year=2022 |title=Heaven in Disorder |___location=New York & London |publisher=OR Books |page=119}}</ref>
===
Žižek's views on social issues such as [[Eurocentrism]], [[immigration]] and [[LGBT]] people have drawn criticism and accusations of bigotry.<ref name="Žižek, Antagonism and Politics Now">{{cite journal |last1=Kapoor |first1=Ilan |title=Žižek, Antagonism and Politics Now: Three Recent Controversies |journal=International Journal of Žižek Studies |date=2018 |volume=12 |issue=1}}</ref>
====Europe and multiculturalism====
In his 1997 article 'Multiculturalism, Or, The Cultural Logic of Multinational Capitalism', Žižek critiqued [[multiculturalism]] for privileging a culturally 'neutral' perspective from which all cultures are disaffectedly apprehended in their particularity because this distancing reproduces the racist procedure of Othering. He further argues that a fixation on particular identities and struggles corresponds to an abandonment of the universal struggle against [[global capitalism]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Žižek |first1=Slavoj |title=Multiculturalism, Or, The Cultural Logic of Multinational Capitalism |url=https://newleftreview.org/issues/i225/articles/slavoj-zizek-multiculturalism-or-the-cultural-logic-of-multinational-capitalism |journal=New Left Review |date=1997 |issue=I/225 |pages=28–51 |access-date=12 November 2022 |archive-date=12 November 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221112150424/https://newleftreview.org/issues/i225/articles/slavoj-zizek-multiculturalism-or-the-cultural-logic-of-multinational-capitalism |url-status=live }}</ref>
In his 1998 article 'A Leftist Plea for "Eurocentrism"', he argued that Leftists should 'undermine the global empire of capital, not by asserting particular identities, but through the assertion of a new universality',<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Žižek |first1=Slavoj |title=A Leftist Plea for "Eurocentrism" |journal=Critical Inquiry |date=1998 |volume=24 |issue=4 |page=1008|doi=10.1086/448904 |s2cid=211516308 }}</ref> and that in this struggle the European universalist value of equaliberty ([[Étienne Balibar]]'s term) should be foregrounded, proposing 'a Leftist appropriation of the European legacy'.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Žižek |first1=Slavoj |title=A Leftist Plea for "Eurocentrism" |journal=Critical Inquiry |date=1998 |volume=24 |issue=4 |page=1006|doi=10.1086/448904 |s2cid=211516308 }}</ref> Elsewhere, he has also argued, defending [[Marx]], that Europe's destruction of non-European tradition (e.g. through imperialism and slavery) has opened up the space for a 'double liberation', both from tradition and from European domination.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Žižek |first1=Slavoj |title=The Impasses of Today's Radical Politics |journal=Crisis & Critique |date=2014 |volume=1 |page=11ff}}</ref>
In her 2010 article 'The Two Zizeks', [[Nivedita Menon]] criticised Žižek for focusing on differentiation as a colonial project, ignoring how assimilation was also such a project; she also critiqued him for privileging the European Enlightenment Christian legacy as neutral, 'free of the cultural markers that fatally afflict all other religions.'<ref>{{cite web |url=http://kafila.org/2010/01/07/the-two-zizeks/ |last1=Menon |first1=Nivedita |title=The Two Zizeks |date=7 January 2010 |access-date=25 April 2023 |website=KAFILA – Collective explorations since 2006|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100116065758/http://kafila.org/2010/01/07/the-two-zizeks/ |archive-date=16 January 2010 }}</ref> David Pavón Cuéllar, closer to Žižek, also criticised him.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Pavón-Cuéllar |first=D. |year=2020 |title=Žižek, universalismo y colonialismo: doce tesis para no aceptarlo todo |journal=International Journal of Žižek Studies |volume=14 |issue=3 |pages=1–22 |url=https://zizekstudies.org/index.php/IJZS/article/view/1193/1225 |format=pdf |language=es |access-date=5 February 2021 |archive-date=1 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220401081650/https://zizekstudies.org/index.php/IJZS/article/view/1193/1225 |url-status=live }}</ref>
In the mid-2010s, over the issue of Eurocentrism, there was a dispute between Žižek and [[Walter Mignolo]], in which Mignolo (supporting a previous article by [[Hamid Dabashi]],<ref>{{cite web |last1=Dabashi |first1=Hamid |title=Can non-Europeans think? |url=https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2013/1/15/can-non-europeans-think/ |website=Aljazeera |access-date=16 November 2022 |archive-date=16 November 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221116210112/https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2013/1/15/can-non-europeans-think/ |url-status=live }}</ref> which argued against the centrality of European philosophers like Žižek, criticised by [[Michael Marder]]<ref>{{cite web |last1=Marder |first1=Micheal |title=A post-colonial comedy of errors |url=https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2013/4/13/a-post-colonial-comedy-of-errors/ |website=Aljazeera |access-date=16 November 2022 |archive-date=16 November 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221116210106/https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2013/4/13/a-post-colonial-comedy-of-errors/ |url-status=live }}</ref>) argued, against Žižek, that decolonial struggle should forget European philosophy, purportedly following [[Frantz Fanon]];<ref>{{cite web |last1=Mignolo |first1=Walter D. |title=Yes, we can: Non-European thinkers and philosophers |url=https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2013/2/19/yes-we-can-non-european-thinkers-and-philosophers/ |website=Aljazeera |access-date=16 November 2022 |archive-date=16 November 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221116210106/https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2013/2/19/yes-we-can-non-european-thinkers-and-philosophers/ |url-status=live }}</ref> in response, Žižek pointed out Fanon's European intellectual influences, and his resistance to being confined within the black tradition, and claimed to be following Fanon on this point.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Žižek |first1=Slavoj |title=The Impasses of Today's Radical Politics |journal=Crisis & Critique |date=2014 |volume=1 |page=9ff}}</ref> In his book ''Can Non-Europeans Think?'' (foreworded by Mignolo), Dabashi also critiqued Žižek for privileging Europe;<ref>{{cite book |last1=Dabashi |first1=Hamid |title=Can Non-Europeans Think? |date=2015 |publisher=Zed Books |___location=London |isbn=978-1783604227 |page=1ff}}</ref> Žižek argued that Dabashi slanderously and comically misrepresents him through misattribution,<ref name="A Reply to My Critics">{{cite web |last1=Žižek |first1=Slavoj |title=A Reply to My Critics |url=https://thephilosophicalsalon.com/a-reply-to-my-critics/ |website=The Philosophical Salon |date=5 August 2016 |access-date=8 May 2022 |archive-date=7 August 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160807230212/http://thephilosophicalsalon.com/a-reply-to-my-critics/ |url-status=live }}</ref> a critique supported by [[Ilan Kapoor]].<ref name="Žižek, Antagonism and Politics Now"/>
====Transgender issues====
In his 2016 article "The Sexual Is Political", Žižek argued that all subjects are, like transgender subjects, in discord with the sexual position assigned to them. For Žižek, any attempt to escape this antagonism is false and utopian: thus, he rejects both the reactionary attempt to violently impose sexual fixity and the "[[Postgenderism|postgenderist]]" attempt to escape sexual fixity entirely; he aligns the latter with 'transgenderism', which he claims does not adequately describe the behaviour of actual transgender subjects, who seek a stable "place where they could recognise themselves" (e.g., a bathroom that confirms their identity). Žižek argues for a third bathroom: a "GENERAL GENDER" bathroom that would represent the fact that both sexual positions (Žižek insists on the unavoidable "twoness" of the sexual landscape) are missing something and thus fail to adequately represent the subjects that take them on.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Žižek |first1=Slavoj |title=The Sexual Is Political |url=https://thephilosophicalsalon.com/the-sexual-is-political/ |website=The Philosophical Salon |date=August 2016 |access-date=8 May 2022 |archive-date=3 August 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160803083821/http://thephilosophicalsalon.com/the-sexual-is-political/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
In his 2019 article "Transgender dogma is naive and incompatible with Freud", Žižek argued that there is "a tension in LGBT+ ideology between [[social constructivism]] and (some kind of [[Biological determinism|biological]]) determinism", between the idea that [[Social construction of gender|gender is a social construct]], and the idea that gender is essential and pre-social. He concludes the essay with a "[[Freudian]] solution" to this deadlock:
{{blockquote|...psychic sexual identity is a choice, not a biological fact, but it is not a conscious choice that the subject can playfully repeat and transform. It is an unconscious choice which precedes subjective constitution and which is, as such, formative of subjectivity, which means that the change of this choice entails the radical transformation of the bearer of the choice.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Žižek |first1=Slavoj |title=Transgender dogma is naive and incompatible with Freud |url=https://spectatorworld.com/book-and-art/transgender-dogma-naive-freud/ |website=The Spectator |date=31 May 2019 |access-date=11 June 2022 |archive-date=30 November 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221130083115/https://spectatorworld.com/book-and-art/transgender-dogma-naive-freud/ |url-status=live }}</ref> }}
[[Che Gossett]] criticized Žižek for his use of the "pathologising" term "transgenderism" throughout the 2016 article, and for writing "about trans subjectivity with such assumed authority while ignoring the voices of trans theorists (academics and activists) entirely", as well as for purportedly claiming that a "futuristic" vision underlies so-called "transgenderism", ignoring present-day oppression.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Gossett |first1=Che |title=Žižek's Trans/gender Trouble |url=https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/zizeks-transgender-trouble/ |website=LA Review of Books |date=13 September 2016 |access-date=8 May 2022 |archive-date=6 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220506194143/https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/zizeks-transgender-trouble/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Sam Warren Miell and Chris Coffman, both psychoanalytically inclined, have separately criticized Žižek for conflating transgenderism and postgenderism; Miell further criticised the 2014 article for rehearsing homophobic/transphobic clichés (including Žižek's designation of [[Zoophilia|inter-species marriage]] as a possible "anti-discriminatory demand"), and misusing Lacanian theory; Coffman argued that Žižek should have engaged with contemporary Lacanian trans studies, which would have shown that psychoanalytic and transgender discourses were aligned, not opposed.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Miell |first1=Sam Warren |title=Slavoj Žižek is wrong about stuff |date=3 August 2016 |url=https://differentcolouredhats.wordpress.com/2016/08/03/slavoj-zizek-is-wrong-about-stuff/ |access-date=8 May 2022 |archive-date=19 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221019013432/https://differentcolouredhats.wordpress.com/2016/08/03/slavoj-zizek-is-wrong-about-stuff/ |url-status=live }}; {{cite book |last1=Coffman |first1=Chris |title=Queer Traversals |date=2022 |publisher=Bloomsbury |___location=London |isbn=9781350200005 |page=98}}</ref> In response to the title of the 2019 article, [[McKenzie Wark]] had t-shirts made with the [[transgender flag]] and "Incompatible with Freud" printed on them.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Erlij |first1=Evelyn |title=McKenzie Wark: reinventing the future |url=https://palabrapublica.uchile.cl/2019/07/31/mckenzie-wark-reinventing-the-future/ |access-date=11 June 2022 |archive-date=30 November 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221130042000/https://palabrapublica.uchile.cl/2019/07/31/mckenzie-wark-reinventing-the-future/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
Žižek defended his 2016 article in two follow-up pieces. The first addresses purported misreadings of his position,<ref name="A Reply to My Critics"/> while the second is a more sustained defence (against Miell) of the article's application of Lacanian theory,<ref>{{cite web |last1=Žižek |first1=Slavoj |title=A Reply to My Critics, Part Two |url=https://thephilosophicalsalon.com/reply-to-my-critics-part-two/ |website=The Philosophical Salon |date=14 August 2016 |access-date=8 May 2022 |archive-date=3 November 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161103135557/http://thephilosophicalsalon.com/reply-to-my-critics-part-two/ |url-status=live }}</ref> to which Miell responded in turn.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Miell |first1=Sam Warren |title=Interrogating the père's version: a response to Slavoj Žižek |date=15 August 2016 |url=https://differentcolouredhats.wordpress.com/2016/08/15/interrogating-the-peres-version-a-response-to-slavoj-zizek/ |access-date=8 May 2022 |archive-date=8 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220508122849/https://differentcolouredhats.wordpress.com/2016/08/15/interrogating-the-peres-version-a-response-to-slavoj-zizek/ |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Douglas Lain]] also defended Žižek, claiming that context makes it clear that Žižek is "not opposed [to] the struggle of LGBTQ people" but is instead critiquing "a phony liberal ideology that set up the terms of the LGBTQ struggle", "a certain utopian postmodern ideology that seeks to eliminate all limits, to eliminate all binaries, to go beyond norms because the imposition of a limit is patriarchal and oppressive."<ref>{{cite web |last1=Lain |first1=Douglas |title=The Fate of Slavoj Žižek |url=https://thoughtcatalog.com/doug-lain/2017/01/the-fate-of-slavoj-zizek/ |website=Thought Catalog |date=25 January 2017 |access-date=11 June 2022 |archive-date=11 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220611210722/https://thoughtcatalog.com/doug-lain/2017/01/the-fate-of-slavoj-zizek/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
In a 2023 piece for ''Compact Magazine'', Žižek took a hard stance against access to [[puberty blockers]] for trans youth, and against trans adults being sent to prisons matching their gender, citing the case of [[Isla Bryson]], whom he referred to as "a person who identifies itself as a woman using its penis to rape two women". Both of these things were attributed by Žižek to [[wokeness]] (the wider subject of the article).<ref>{{Cite news |last1=Žižek |first1=Slavoj |url=https://compactmag.com/article/wokeness-is-here-to-stay |work=Compact Magazine |date=February 22, 2023 |title=Wokeness Is Here To Stay |access-date=13 May 2023 |archive-date=22 February 2023 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20230222090353/https://compactmag.com/article/wokeness-is-here-to-stay |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last1=Zelle |first1=Melanie |url=https://swarthmorephoenix.com/2023/03/02/zizek-has-lost-the-plot/ |work=The Swarthmore Phoenix |date=March 2, 2023 |title=Žižek Has Lost the Plot |access-date=13 May 2023 |archive-date=13 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230513120052/https://swarthmorephoenix.com/2023/03/02/zizek-has-lost-the-plot/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
===Foreign affairs===
In 2013, Žižek corresponded with imprisoned Russian activist and [[Pussy Riot]] member [[Nadezhda Tolokonnikova]].<ref name="Guardian, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova of Pussy Riot's prison letters to Slavoj Žižek">{{Cite web |last1=Žižek |first1=Slavoj |last2=Tolokonnikova |first2=Nadezhda |date=15 November 2013 |title=Nadezhda Tolokonnikova of Pussy Riot's prison letters to Slavoj Žižek |url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/nov/15/pussy-riot-nadezhda-tolokonnikova-slavoj-zizek |work=The Guardian |access-date=21 June 2022 |archive-date=13 December 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161213004047/https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/nov/15/pussy-riot-nadezhda-tolokonnikova-slavoj-zizek |url-status=live }}</ref>{{Blockquote|text=All hearts were beating for you as long as you were perceived as just another version of the liberal-democratic protest against the authoritarian state. The moment it became clear that you rejected global capitalism, reporting on Pussy Riot became much more ambiguous.}}
He criticized Western military interventions in developing countries and wrote that it was the [[2011 military intervention in Libya]] "which threw the country in chaos" and the U.S.-led [[invasion of Iraq]] "which created the conditions for the rise" of the [[Islamic State]].<ref>{{cite news |title=Slavoj Zizek: We Can't Address the EU Refugee Crisis Without Confronting Global Capitalism |url=https://inthesetimes.com/article/slavoj-zizek-european-refugee-crisis-and-global-capitalism |work=In These Times |date=9 September 2015 |access-date=1 October 2022 |archive-date=1 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221001201903/https://inthesetimes.com/article/slavoj-zizek-european-refugee-crisis-and-global-capitalism |url-status=live }}</ref>
Žižek believes that [[China]] is the [[Authoritarian capitalism|combination of capitalism and authoritarianism]] in their extreme forms, and the [[Chinese Communist Party]] is the best protector of the interests of [[capitalism|capitalists]]. From the [[Cultural Revolution]] to [[Chinese economic reform|Deng's reforms]], "[[Mao Zedong|Mao]] himself created the ideological condition for rapid capitalist development by tearing apart the fabric of [[traditional society]]."<ref>{{cite web|author=Slavoj Zizek|url=https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/english_editorials/1004153.html|title=Is China's communism just another name for authoritarian capitalism?|work=Hankyoreh|date=2021-07-19|access-date=31 August 2023|archive-date=31 August 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230831171027/https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/english_editorials/1004153.html|url-status=live}}</ref>
{{Blockquote|text=It is capitalism, again and again, that emerges as the only alternative, the only way to move forward and the dynamic force for change when social life gets stuck into some fixed form. Today, capitalism is much more [[revolutionary]] than the traditional Left obsessed with protecting the old achievements of the [[welfare state]]. Just consider how much capitalism has changed the entire texture of our societies in the past decades.}}
In 2016, Žižek criticized the political left's unwillingness to criticize [[Cuba]] out of a perceived loyalty to [[Fidel Castro]], arguing that the [[United States embargo against Cuba|U.S. embargo]] against Cuba could not alone be blamed for its economic crisis. He also defended Cuban immigrants to the U.S., writing, "what right does a typical middle-class Western Leftist...have to despise a Cuban who decided to leave Cuba not only because of political disenchantment but also because of poverty?" However, he also sympathized with the [[Cuban Revolution]] and hoped that a "reasonable compromise" between socialism and [[privatization]] would be reached.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Zizek |first=Slavoj |date=2016-11-29 |title=Slavoj Zizek: The Left’s Fidelity to Castro-ation |url=https://inthesetimes.com/article/the-left-fidelity-castration-slavoj-zizek-fidel-castro-cuba-che-communism |access-date=2025-08-07 |website=In These Times |language=en}}</ref>
In an opinion article for ''[[The Guardian]]'', Žižek argued in favour of giving full support to [[Ukraine]] after the [[2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine|Russian invasion]] and for creating a stronger [[NATO]] in response to Russian aggression,<ref>{{cite web |last1=Žižek |first1=Slavoj |date=21 June 2022 |title=Pacifism is the wrong response to the war in Ukraine |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/21/pacificsm-is-the-wrong-response-to-the-war-in-ukraine |website=The Guardian |access-date=21 June 2022 |archive-date=21 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220621104839/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/21/pacificsm-is-the-wrong-response-to-the-war-in-ukraine |url-status=live }}</ref> later arguing that it would also be a tragedy for Ukraine to yoke itself to western neoliberalism.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Žižek |first=Slavoj |date=2022-08-30 |title=Ukraine's Tale of Two Colonizations |url=https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/ukraine-russian-occupation-or-western-neoliberal-colonization-by-slavoj-zizek-2022-08 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220830101008/https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/ukraine-russian-occupation-or-western-neoliberal-colonization-by-slavoj-zizek-2022-08? |archive-date=30 August 2022 |access-date=2022-09-05 |website=Project Syndicate |language=en}}</ref> Commenting on the [[2025 Trump–Zelenskyy Oval Office meeting|meeting]] between Presidents [[Donald Trump|Trump]] and [[Volodymyr Zelenskyy|Zelenskyy]] in February 2025, he stated, "Ukrainians are being portrayed as if they could choose peace but instead decide to engage in a war that displaces a quarter of their population, just for the sake of a [[proxy war]]. But in reality, it’s a matter of their survival."<ref>{{Cite interview |last=Zizek |first=Slavoj |interviewer=Kate Tsurkan |title=Slavoj Zizek: Leftists falsify the choice that Ukrainians face during wartime |url=https://kyivindependent.com/slavoj-zizek-putin-represents-the-worst-of-a-longstanding-trend-in-russian-history/ |work=[[Kyiv Independent]] |date=January 29, 2025}}</ref> He compared the struggle of Ukraine against its occupiers to the [[Palestinians]]' struggle against the [[Israeli-occupied territories|Israeli occupation]].<ref>{{cite news |date=15 September 2022 |title=Ukraine is Palestine, not Israel |url=https://jordantimes.com/opinion/slavoj-%C5%BEi%C5%BEek/ukraine-palestine-not-israel |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221001201903/https://jordantimes.com/opinion/slavoj-%C5%BEi%C5%BEek/ukraine-palestine-not-israel |archive-date=1 October 2022 |access-date=1 October 2022 |work=The Jordan Times}}</ref>
After the [[October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel|October 7th Hamas-led attacks]] in Israel, Žižek wrote:<ref>{{Cite web |last=Žižek |first=Slavoj |date=2023-10-13 |title=The Real Dividing Line in Israel-Palestine |url=https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/israel-palestine-hamas-and-hardliners-against-peace-by-slavoj-zizek-2023-10 |access-date=2025-05-01 |website=Project Syndicate |language=en}}</ref>
{{Blockquote|text=We can and should unconditionally support Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorist attacks. But we also must unconditionally sympathize with the truly desperate and hopeless conditions faced by Palestinians in [[Gaza Strip|Gaza]] and the occupied territories. Those who think there is a “contradiction” in this position are the ones who are effectively blocking a solution.}}
In April 2024, Žižek criticized Israel's [[Gaza war|actions]] in the [[Gaza Strip]], arguing that Israel's true goal, disguised under claims of eliminating [[Hamas]], was to annex both [[Proposed Israeli resettlement of the Gaza Strip|Gaza]] and the [[Proposed Israeli annexation of the West Bank|West Bank]].<ref>{{cite news |title=The world cannot just cancel Palestine |url=https://www.japantimes.co.jp/commentary/2024/04/26/world/palestine-gaza-war-protests-canceled/ |work=The Japan Times |date=26 April 2024}}</ref>
=== Other ===
Žižek wrote that the [[Cankar Hall|convention center]] in which nationalist [[Slovene writers]] hold their conventions should be blown up, adding, "Since we live in the time without any sense of irony, I must add I don't mean it literally."<ref name="Interview_part_two">{{cite web |date=2 March 2013 |title=Interview] with Žižek – part two |url=http://www.delo.si/zgodbe/sobotnapriloga/slavoj-zizek-bog-daj-da-bi-ciniki-na-oblasti-res-vedeli-kaj-pocnejo.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130405024835/http://www.delo.si/zgodbe/sobotnapriloga/slavoj-zizek-bog-daj-da-bi-ciniki-na-oblasti-res-vedeli-kaj-pocnejo.html |archive-date=5 April 2013 |access-date=21 June 2022 |work=[[Delo (newspaper)|Delo]] |language=sl}}</ref>
==Criticism and controversy==
{{Criticism section|date=October 2024}}
===Inconsistency and ambiguity===
Žižek's philosophical and political positions have been described as ambiguous, and his work has been criticized for a failure to take a consistent stance.<ref>{{cite web |last=Kuhn |first=Gabriel |year=2011 |url=http://www.alpineanarchist.org/r_anarchist_hypothesis.html |title=The Anarchist Hypothesis, or Badiou, Žižek, and the Anti-Anarchist Prejudice |website=Alpine Anarchist |access-date=4 September 2013 |archive-date=28 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210428121741/http://www.alpineanarchist.org/r_anarchist_hypothesis.html |url-status=live }}</ref> While he has claimed to stand by a revolutionary Marxist project, his lack of vision concerning the possible circumstances which could lead to successful revolution makes it unclear what that project consists of. According to [[John Gray (philosopher)|John Gray]] and John Holbo, his theoretical argument often lacks grounding in historical fact, which makes him more provocative than insightful.<ref name="ViolentVisions">{{cite journal|last=Gray|first=John|title=The Violent Visions of Slavoj Žižek|journal=New York Review of Books|date=12 July 2012|volume=59 |issue=12 |url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/jul/12/violent-visions-slavoj-zizek/|access-date=22 September 2012|archive-date=20 November 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151120004119/http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/jul/12/violent-visions-slavoj-zizek/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=Holbo-2004>{{cite journal|last=Holbo|first=John|title=On Žižek and Trilling|journal=Philosophy and Literature|date=1 January 2004|volume=28|issue=2|pages=430–440|doi=10.1353/phl.2004.0029|s2cid=170396508|quote=...an unhealthy anti-liberal is one, like Z+iz=ek, who ticks and tocks in unreflective revulsion at liberalism, pantomiming that he is de Maistre (or Abraham) or Robespierre (or Lenin) by turns, lest he look like Mill.}}</ref><ref name=Holbo-CT-2010>{{cite news|last=Holbo|first=John|title=Zizek on the Financial Collapse – and Liberalism|url=http://crookedtimber.org/2010/12/17/zizek-on-the-financial-collapse-and-liberalism/|access-date=21 August 2012|newspaper=Crooked Timbers|date=17 December 2010|quote=To review: Zizek does this liberal = neoliberal thing. Which is no good. And he doesn't even have much to say about economics. And Zizek does this liberal = self-hating pc white intellectuals thing. Which is no good.|archive-date=4 March 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120304223230/http://crookedtimber.org/2010/12/17/zizek-on-the-financial-collapse-and-liberalism/|url-status=live}}</ref>
In a very negative review of Žižek's book ''Less than Nothing'', John Gray attacked Žižek for his celebrations of violence, his failure to ground his theories in historical facts, and his 'formless radicalism' which, according to Gray, professes to be communist yet lacks the conviction that communism could ever be successfully realized. Gray concluded that Žižek's work, though entertaining, is intellectually worthless: "Achieving a deceptive substance by endlessly reiterating an essentially empty vision, Žižek's work amounts in the end to less than nothing."<ref name="ViolentVisions"/>
Žižek's refusal to present an alternative vision has led critics to accuse him of using unsustainable Marxist categories of analysis and having a 19th-century understanding of class.<ref>{{cite web|title=Slavoj Zizek responds to his critics|last=Žižek|first=Slavoj|work=[[Jacobin (magazine)|Jacobin]]|date=3 July 2012|url=https://www.jacobinmag.com/2012/07/slavoj-zizek-responds-to-his-critics/|access-date=13 April 2018|archive-date=2 March 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180302225322/https://www.jacobinmag.com/2012/07/slavoj-zizek-responds-to-his-critics/|url-status=live}}</ref> For example, [[post-Marxist]] [[Ernesto Laclau]] argued that "Žižek uses class as a sort of ''[[deus ex machina]]'' to play the role of the good guy against the multicultural devils."<ref>Butler, Judith, Ernesto Laclau and Slavoj Žižek ''Contingency, Hegemony, Universality: Contemporary Dialogues on the Left''. Verso. London, New York City 2000. pp. 202–206</ref>
In his book ''Living in the End Times'', Žižek suggests that the criticism of his positions is itself ambiguous and multilateral:
{{blockquote|I am attacked for being anti-Semitic ''and'' for spreading [[Zionism|Zionist]] lies, for being a covert Slovene nationalist ''and'' unpatriotic traitor to my nation, for being a crypto-Stalinist defending terror ''and'' for spreading Bourgeois lies about Communism... so maybe, just maybe I am on the right path, the path of fidelity to freedom.<ref>{{cite book |first=Slavoj |last=Žižek |title=Living in the End Times |page=xiv}}</ref>}}
===Stylistic confusion===
Žižek has been criticized for his chaotic and non-systematic style: Harpham calls Žižek's style "a stream of nonconsecutive units arranged in arbitrary sequences that solicit a sporadic and discontinuous attention".<ref>Harpham [http://www.uchicago.edu/research/jnl-crit-inq/issues/v29/v29n3.harpham1.html "Doing the Impossible: Slavoj Žižek and the End of Knowledge"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120330100325/http://www.uchicago.edu/research/jnl-crit-inq/issues/v29/v29n3.harpham1.html |date=30 March 2012 }}</ref> O'Neill concurs: "a dizzying array of wildly entertaining and often quite maddening rhetorical strategies are deployed in order to beguile, browbeat, dumbfound, dazzle, confuse, mislead, overwhelm, and generally subdue the reader into acceptance."<ref>{{citation |last=O'Neill |url=http://www.film-philosophy.com/vol5-2001/n17oneill |title=The Last Analysis of Slavoj Žižek |access-date=14 May 2008 |archive-date=4 July 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080704081134/http://www.film-philosophy.com/vol5-2001/n17oneill |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Noam Chomsky]] deems Žižek guilty of "using fancy terms like polysyllables and pretending you have a theory when you have no theory whatsoever", adding that his views are often too obscure to be communicated usefully to common people.<ref>{{cite web |last=Springer |first=Mike |date=28 June 2013 |url=http://www.openculture.com/2013/06/noam_chomsky_slams_zizek_and_lacan_empty_posturing.html |title=Noam Chomsky Slams Žižek and Lacan: Empty 'Posturing' |website=OpenCulture.com |access-date=20 June 2018 |archive-date=19 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220319200117/http://www.openculture.com/2013/06/noam_chomsky_slams_zizek_and_lacan_empty_posturing.html |url-status=live }}</ref>
Conservative thinker [[Roger Scruton]] claims that:
{{blockquote|To summarize Žižek's position is not easy: he slips between philosophical and psychoanalytical ways of arguing, and is spell-bound by [[Lacan]]'s gnomic utterances. He is a lover of paradox, and believes strongly in what [[Hegel]] called 'the labour of the negative' though taking the idea, as always, one stage further towards the brick wall of paradox.<ref>{{cite book |last=Scruton |first=Roger |author-link=Roger Scruton |date=2015 |title=Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left |publisher=Bloomsbury |page=256 |isbn=978-1408187333}}</ref>}}
===Careless scholarship===
Žižek has been accused of approaching phenomena without rigour, reductively forcing them to support pre-given theoretical notions. For example, [[Tania Modleski]] alleges that "in trying to make [[Hitchcock]] 'fit' [[Lacan]], he [Žižek] frequently ends up simplifying what goes on in the films".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Modleski |first1=Tania |title=The Women Who Knew Too Much |date=2005 |publisher=Routledge |___location=New York & London |page=132 |edition=2}}</ref> Similarly, [[Yannis Stavrakakis]] criticises Žižek's reading of ''[[Antigone (Sophocles play)|Antigone]]'', claiming it proceeds without regard for both the play itself and the interpretation, given by Lacan in his 7th [[Seminars of Jacques Lacan|Seminar]], which Žižek claims to follow. According to Stavrakakis, Žižek mistakenly characterises [[Antigone]]'s act (illegally burying her brother) as politically radical/revolutionary, when in reality "Her act is a ''one-off'' and she couldn't care less about what will happen in the polis after her suicide."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Stavrakakis |first1=Yannis |title=The Lacanian Left |date=2007 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |___location=Edinburgh |page=115}}</ref>
Noah Horwitz alleges that Žižek (and the [[Ljubljana school of psychoanalysis|Ljubljana School]] to which Žižek belongs) mistakenly conflates the insights of Lacan and Hegel, and registers concern that such a move "risks transforming Lacanian psychoanalysis into a discourse of ''self-consciousness'' rather than a discourse on the psychoanalytic, Freudian ''unconscious''."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Horwitz |first1=Noah |title=Contra the Slovenians |journal=Philosophy Today |date=2005 |volume=49 |issue=1 |page=24|doi=10.5840/philtoday200549161 }}</ref>
====Allegations of plagiarism====
Žižek's tendency to recycle portions of his own texts in subsequent works resulted in the accusation of [[self-plagiarism]] by ''[[The New York Times]]'' in 2014, after Žižek published an [[op-ed]] in the magazine which contained portions of his writing from an earlier book.<ref name="Newsweek">{{cite web|url=http://www.newsweek.com/slavoj-zizek-self-plagiarized-new-york-times-269221|first=Taylor|last=Wofford|title=Slavoj Žižek On 'Self Plagiarism' in The New York Times: What's the Big Deal?|website=[[Newsweek]]|date=10 September 2014|access-date=29 September 2015|archive-date=29 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150929234428/http://www.newsweek.com/slavoj-zizek-self-plagiarized-new-york-times-269221|url-status=live}}</ref> In response, Žižek expressed perplexity at the harsh tone of the denunciation, emphasizing that the recycled passages in question only acted as references from his theoretical books to supplement otherwise original writing.<ref name="Newsweek"/>
In July 2014, ''[[Newsweek]]'' reported that online bloggers led by [[Steve Sailer]] had discovered that in an article published in 2006, Žižek plagiarized long passages from an earlier review by Stanley Hornbeck that first appeared in the journal ''[[American Renaissance (magazine)|American Renaissance]]'', a publication condemned by the [[Southern Poverty Law Center]] as the organ of a "white nationalist hate group".<ref name="American_Renaissance_Plagiarism">{{cite web |url=http://www.newsweek.com/did-marxist-philosophy-superstar-slavoj-zizek-plagiarize-white-nationalist-journal-258433 |first=Taylor |last=Wofford |title=Did Marxist Philosophy Superstar Slavoj Žižek Plagiarize a White Nationalist Journal? |work=Newsweek |date=11 July 2014 |access-date=13 July 2014 |archive-date=13 July 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140713053008/http://www.newsweek.com/did-marxist-philosophy-superstar-slavoj-zizek-plagiarize-white-nationalist-journal-258433 |url-status=live }}</ref> In response to the allegations, Žižek stated:
{{blockquote|The friend send [sic] it to me, assuring me that I can use it freely since it merely resumes another's line of thought. Consequently, I did just that—and I sincerely apologize for not knowing that my friend's resume was largely borrowed from Stanley Hornbeck's review of Macdonald's book. ... In no way can I thus be accused of plagiarizing another's line of thought, of 'stealing ideas'. I nonetheless deeply regret the incident.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Dean|first1=Michelle|title=Slavoj Žižek Sorta Kinda Admits Plagiarizing White Supremacist Journal|url=http://gawker.com/slavoj-zizek-sorta-kinda-admits-plagiarizing-white-supr-1604590014|website=[[Gawker]]|date=14 July 2014|access-date=20 February 2015|archive-date=19 February 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150219010643/http://gawker.com/slavoj-zizek-sorta-kinda-admits-plagiarizing-white-supr-1604590014|url-status=dead}}</ref>}}
==Works==
===Bibliography===
{{Main|Slavoj Žižek bibliography}}
===Filmography===
{| class="wikitable sortable"
|+
|-
! Year
! Title
|-
| 1993
| ''Laibach: A Film From Slovenia''
|-
| rowspan="2" | 1996
|''[[Liebe Dein Symptom wie Dich selbst!]]''
|-
| ''[[Predictions of Fire]]''
|-
| 1997
|''Post-Socialism+Retro Avantgarde+Irwin''
|-
| 2004
| ''[[The Reality of the Virtual]]''
|-
| 2005
| ''[[Zizek!]]''
|-
| rowspan="2" | 2006
| ''[[The Pervert's Guide to Cinema]]''
|-
| ''[[The Possibility of Hope]]''
|-
| rowspan="2" | 2008
| ''[[Examined Life]]''
|-
| ''Violence''<ref>{{cite web | title=Slavoj Žižek | date=3 October 2008 | publisher=Talks at Google | via=YouTube | url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x0eyNkNpL0&t=24s | access-date=October 10, 2023 | archive-date=24 October 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231024024539/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x0eyNkNpL0&t=24s | url-status=live }}</ref>
|-
| rowspan="2" | 2009
| ''[[Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution]]''
|-
| ''Alien, Marx & Co. - Slavoj Žižek, Ein Porträt''
|-
| 2011
| ''[[Marx Reloaded]]''
|-
| rowspan="2" | 2012
| ''Catastroika''
|-
| ''[[The Pervert's Guide to Ideology]]''
|-
| 2013
| ''Balkan Spirit''
|-
| rowspan="2" | 2016
| ''[[Risk (2016 film)|Risk]]''
|-
| ''[[Houston, We Have a Problem! (film)|Houston, We Have a Problem!]]''
|-
|2018
|Turn On (short)<ref>{{Cite web
|title=London
|url=https://www.muteseries.com/mutefilms/turn-on/
|website=The MUTE Series — film snacks served dry
|access-date=2 May 2025
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210214132422/https://www.muteseries.com/films/turn_on.php
|archive-date=14 February 2021
|url-status=live}}</ref>
|-
| 2021
| ''[[Bliss (2021 film)|Bliss]]''
|}
==References==
{{Reflist}}
==External links==
{{Wikiquote}}
{{Commons}}
{{external media| width = 220px| video1 = {{YouTube|TrdPchnAR60|Slavoj Zizek on Yellow Vests. How to Watch the News, Episode 01}}}}
* Slavoj Žižek on [http://bigthink.com/experts/slavoj-zizek Big Think]
* [http://www.egs.edu/faculty/slavoj-zizek/biography/ Slavoj Žižek Faculty Page] at [[European Graduate School]]
* [http://www.iep.utm.edu/z/zizek.htm Žižek's entry] in the [[Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]
* [http://www.lacan.com/bibliographyzi.htm Žižek bibliography] at ''[[Lacanian Ink]]'' magazine
* [https://www.theguardian.com/profile/slavojzizek Column archive] at ''[[The Guardian]]''
* [https://jacobinmag.com/author/slavoj-zizek Column archive] at ''[[Jacobin (magazine)|Jacobin]]''
* {{C-SPAN|1030931}}
* {{IMDb name|1670978}}
* [[Wendy Brown (political theorist)|Wendy Brown]], [[Costas Douzinas]], Stephen Frosh, and Žižek at the London Critical Theory Summer School – [http://backdoorbroadcasting.net/2012/06/critical-theory-summer-school-2012-friday-debate-i/ Friday Debate 2012] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210805091500/https://backdoorbroadcasting.net/2012/06/critical-theory-summer-school-2012-friday-debate-i/ |date=5 August 2021 }}
* {{Muckrack}}
* {{substack handle}}
{{Continental philosophy}}
{{Critique of political economy}}
{{Social and political philosophy}}
{{Death of God philosophers}}
{{Portal bar|Biography|Slovenia|Philosophy|Film}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Žižek, Slavoj}}
[[Category:Slavoj Žižek| ]]
[[Category:1949 births]]
[[Category:20th
[[Category:
[[Category:20th-century non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:20th-century Slovenian philosophers]]
[[Category:21st-century atheists]]
[[Category:21st-century essayists]]
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[[Category:21st-century Slovenian philosophers]]
[[Category:21st-century Slovenian writers]]
[[Category:Academic staff of European Graduate School]]
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[[Category:Academics of Birkbeck, University of London]]
[[Category:Analysands of Jacques-Alain Miller]]
[[Category:Anti-capitalists]]
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[[Category:Anti-Stalinist left]]
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[[Category:Atheist philosophers]]
[[Category:
[[Category:Writers on atheism]]
[[Category:Contemporary philosophers]]
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[[Category:Criticism of capitalism]]
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[[Category:Deleuze scholars]]
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[[Category:Freudo-Marxism]]
[[Category:Hegelian philosophers]]
[[Category:Jacques Lacan]]
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[[Category:Libertarian Marxists]]
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[[Category:Logicians]]
[[Category:Maoist theorists]]
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[[Category:
[[Category:
[[Category:Media critics]]
[[Category:Members of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts]]
[[Category:Metaphysicians]]
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[[Category:Paris 8 University Vincennes-Saint-Denis alumni]]
[[Category:Philosophers of art]]
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[[Category:Philosophers of logic]]
[[Category:Philosophers of nihilism]]
[[Category:Philosophers of psychology]]
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[[Category:Philosophers of science]]
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[[Category:Slovenian atheists]]
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[[Category:Slovenian Marxists]]
[[Category:Slovenian non-fiction writers]]
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[[Category:Yugoslav dissidents]]
[[Category:Hegel scholars]]
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