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He doesnt mention Burroughs directly but starting at 4:00 Zizek suggests how seemingly radical concepts like the Burroughsian Composite City have been coopted by the agents of control.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4GJyN7H ... re=related

"In Defense of Lost Causes" was a great read. I need to get "The Puppet and the Dwarf."

Zizek, and a lot of philosophers associated with postmodernism (not saying that he is a postmodernist), always seem to making the argument that seemingly radical ideas are always co-opted by the establishment and their arguments always switch perspectives back and forth to the point of absurdity. From Peter Lamborn Wilson to Baudrillard to many others, it's always the same: whatever once had subversive pontentials has been absorbed by the capitalist monster. Zizek argues that only the most masterly art has any subversive pontentiality. Very elitist.

I am not very familiar with his work but Zizek thinks that a popular mass work like Children of Men has revolutionary potential.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbgrwNP_gYE

One of his main methods is to use pop culture films to illustrate philosophical ideas from Lacan and Hegel. I've heard him argue Alain Badiou's idea that the only art worth bothering with in out currrent society is art that strives for formal perfection, He claims the ideas of that drove the May 68 revolt (and the other events happening around the world at the same time) like creativity and self-realization, have already been fulfilled within capitalism, or have at least been co-opted by it.

Diseased,

I am interested in reading a book of Zizek's, but one that is more based in history and popular culture and less on theory. I have read his essay on the French Terror. I got copies of his essay on Cyberspace and Courtly Love.

Any recommendations?

Also anybody else you know of doing readings of film, literature, revolutionary politics in a way like Zizek that has emerged in the last 20 years? I am a bit behind the times and havent read much after 1980 or so.

thanks

jed

In "In Defense of Lost Causes" he makes use of popular films, including "Goodbye Lenin." He basically makes the same argument in different registers, so he'll start with a thesis and analyze from a slightly different angle using many different films and examples. "In Defense" argues for going back retroactively and retrieving whatever emancipatory kernels there may have been in Leninism.

"Perverts Guide to Cinema" analyzes The Marx Brothers, Hitchcock, Lynch, and others from a Lacanian angle.

As for anybody out there doing analysis similar to Zizek, maybe Judith Butler......... He's pretty original in his use of pop culture.

that Pervert's Guide was very good, liked the guy etc...will get this In Defence methinks...