The Art of Shrinking Heads
Jodi Dean over at I cite has put together a brief review of Dany-Robert Dufour’s The Art of Shrinking Heads, a Lacanian critique of late capitalism and the rise of the “postmodern subject.” I haven’t read Dufour’s book yet, but going off of Dean’s review, it seems to significantly overlap with Zizek’s similarly-themed politico-philosophical project, which would be one reason among others to take some interest in reading it (or her post(s) on it, at the very least).
Conditions of Receptivity
Dr. Sinthome:
At what point do certain statements, certain declarations, certain assertions, take on the capacity to resonate and produce effects in a receiver? What are the conditions for the possibility of being heard? … I became capable of receiving a message where before I was not. But how and under what conditions? Likewise, under what conditions do certain political positions and declarations begin to resonate within the social field? This question is at the very heart of social change and is not secondary or ancillary to questions of critique. For without adequately answering these questions, adequate strategies of producing change cannot be formulated. However, a glance at the history of political transformations also seems to indicate that while these shifts are cultural in character, they also seem to involve material transformations that problematize the cultural sphere, calling for new institutions, new group formations, new ways of feeling, new subjectivities, and new ways of living.
The Symptom 9: Universalism vs. Globalization
I haven’t really been following its publication recently, but there looks to be a bunch of interesting pieces in here, including J.-A. Miller’s essay, “Extimity,” Zizek’s essay on the Lacanian Real and television, and several of Heidegger’s political tracts from the early 1930s. (Via Larval Subjects.)
Zizek on Philosophy
A series of three articles written by Zizek on philosophy, examining the relationship between Spinoza-Kant-Hegel, Deleuze-Derrida-Lacan and, lastly, Badiou. I thought this was especially well-put, as its an insight that many come to experience at a University, but never really consider as a problem outside of the way “Philosophy” departments are run:
This theory of the four “conditions” of philosophy allows us to approach in a new way the old problem of the “role” of philosophy. Often, other disciplines take over (at least part of) the “normal” role of philosophy… in US today - in the conditions of the predominance of cognitivism and brain studies in philosophy departments -, most of “Continental Philosophy” takes place in Comparative Literature, Cultural Studies, English, French and German departments… What if, then, there is no “normal role”? What if it is exceptions themselves which retroactively create the illusion of the “norm” they allegedly violate? What if not only, in philosophy, exception is the rule, but also philosophy - the need for the authentic philosophical thought - arises precisely in those moments when (other) parts-constituents of the social edifice cannot play their “proper role”? What if the “proper” space for philosophy ARE these very gaps and interstices opened up by the “pathological” displacements in the social edifice? Along these lines, the first great merit of Badiou is that, for the first time, he systematically deployed the four modes of this reference of philosophy (to science, art, politics, and love).
(Via Naught Thought.)
Lacan and Sexuation
Want to know what this is?
I stumbled across a terrific and comprehensible (albeit two year old) post on Lacan’s sexuation formulas over at Larval Subjects, so if you do, I suggest giving the article a read.