Zizek and the Media
TM - Theory and Media
1. Auflage November 2010
192 Seiten, Hardcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd
Slavoj Zizek reaches the parts of the media that other theorists
cannot. With sources ranging from Thomas Aquinas to Quentin
Tarantino and Desperate Housewives to Dostoyevsky, Zizek mixes high
theory with low culture more engagingly than any other thinker
alive today. His prolific output includes such media friendly
content as a TV series (The Pervert's Guide to Cinema) a
documentary movie (Zizek!) and a wealth of YouTube clips. A
celebrity academic, he walks the media talk.
Zizek and the Media provides a systematic and
approachable introduction to the main concepts and themes of
Zizek's work, and their particular implications for the study of
the media. The book:
* Describes the radical nature of Zizek's media politics
* Uses Zizekian insights to expose the profound intellectual
limitations of conventional approaches to the media
* Explores the psychoanalytical and philosophical roots of
Zizek's work
* Provides the reader with Zizekian tools to uncover the hidden
ideologies of everyday media content;
Explains the ultimate seriousness that underlies his numerous
jokes.
As likely to discuss Homer's Springfield as Ithaca, Zizek is
shown to be the ideal guide for today's mediascape.
Party viii
Acknowledgements xiii
Introduction: 'The Marx Brother', 'The Elvis
of Cultural Theory', and Other Media Cliches 1
1 The Mediated Imp of the Perverse 6
2 ?i?ek's Tickling Shtick 34
3 Big (Br)Other: Psychoanalysing the Media 63
4 Understanding Media: The Sublime Objectification of Ideology
91
5 The Media's Violence 120
6 The Joker's Little Shop of Ideological Horrors 149
Conclusion: Don't Just Do It: Negative Dialectics in the
Age of Nike 176
Notes 183
Bibliography 189
Index 202
his contribution to the fields of medi and cultural analysis
... It is nothing less than a myth-busting exposition of how,
in the age of media saturation, we are directed to live and
perceive."
Media, Culture & Society
"Ask not for whom theory waits, motionless - it waits for all of us
in Paul Taylor's excellent Zizek and the Media."
Media Education Research Journal
"Taylor does a superb job of showing how electrifying and
profound the media current that flows through Zizek's work really
is."
Joan Copjec, University at Buffalo
"Paul Taylor's Zizek and the Media provides a thorough
introduction to the paradoxes and subtleties of Slavoj Zizek's
thought, and at the same time it articulates a compelling theory of
how the contemporary media functions in unforeseen ways. Taylor's
originality derives from his vigilant attention to forms. He is the
first to explain fully how the idiosyncratic form in which Zizek
presents his philosophy emerges out of its content. And in the
process, he grasps what makes Zizek's such a penetrating critique
of our media universe. Taylor's book goes beyond being a book about
Zizek and becomes one that enacts Zizek's mode of thinking on its
readers."
Todd McGowan, University of Vermont
"All jokes aside, this is a seriously serious book. Zizek is one
of the most media-savvy of all contemporary philosophers, and
medium in the form of the concrete universal is one of his most
important concepts. Paul Taylor does a terrific job putting
together these two sides of Zizek to produce a provocative parallax
view."
Rex Butler, University of Queensland
