Bookstore

The concept of disparity has long been a topic of obsession and argument for philosophers but Slavoj Zizek would argue that what disparity and negativity could mean, might mean and should mean for us and our lives has never been more hotly debated.

Disparities explores contemporary 'negative' philosophies from Catherine Malabou's plasticity, Julia Kristeva's abjection and Robert Pippin's self-consciousness to the God of negative theology, new realisms and post-humanism and draws a radical line under them. Instead of establishing a dialogue with these other ideas of disparity, Slavoj Zizek wants to establish a definite departure, a totally different idea of disparity based on an imaginative dialectical materialism. This notion of rupturing what has gone before is based on a provocative reading of how philosophers can, if they're honest, engage with each other. Slavoj Zizek borrows Alain Badiou's notion that a true idea is the one that divides. Radically departing from previous formulations of negativity and disparity, Zizek employs a new kind of negativity: namely positing that when a philosopher deals with another philosopher, his or her stance is never one of dialogue, but one of division, of drawing a line that separates truth from falsity. All in all, Zizek proves again that he is one of today's most important and exciting philosophers. * CHOICE *

Disparities

INTRODUCTION: IS HEGEL DEAD - OR ARE WE DEAD (IN THE EYES OF HEGEL)?

When the Kraken Wakes

A Report from the Trenches of Dialectical Materialism



I THE DISPARITY OF TRUTH: SUBJECT, OBJECT, AND THE REST

1. FROM HUMAN TO POSTHUMAN AND BACK TO INHUMAN: THE PERSISTENCE OF ONTOLOGICAL DIFFERENCE

Aspects of Disparity

Against the Univocity of Being

Posthuman, Transhuman, Inhuman

Hyperobjects in the Age of Anthropocene

Biology or Quantum Physics?



2. OBJECTS, OBJECTS AND THE SUBJECT

Re-enchanting Nature? No, Thanks!

A Detour: Ideology in Pluriverse

On a Subject Which Is Not an Object

Resistance, Stasis, Repetition

Speculative Judgment

The Subject's Epigenesis



3. SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS, WHICH SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS? AGAINST THE RENORMALIZATION OF HEGEL

In Defense of Hegel's Madness

The Immediacy of Mediation

The Stick in Itself, for Us, for Itself

Action and Responsibility

Recollection, Forgiveness, Reconciliation

Healing the Wound

Self-consciousness = Freedom = Reason

Reflexivity of the Unconscious



II THE DISPARITY OF BEAUTY: THE UGLY, THE ABJECT, AND THE MINIMAL DIFFERENCE

4. ART AFTER HEGEL, HEGEL AFTER THE END OF ART

With Hegel Against Hegel

The Ugly Gaze

From the Sublime to the Monstrous

Hegel's Path towards the Nonfigurative

Between Auschwitz and Telenovelas



5. VERSIONS OF ABJECT: UGLY, CREEPY, DISGUSTING

Varieties of Disavowal

Traversing Abjection

"MOOR EEFFOC"

From Abjective to Creepy

Mamatschi!

Eisler's Sinthoms



6. WHEN NOTHING CHANGES: TWO SCENES OF SUBJECTIVE DESTITUTION

The Lesson of Psychoanalysis

Music as a Sign of Love

A Failed Betrayal

Scene from a Happy Life



III THE DISPARITY OF THE GOOD: TOWARDS A MATERIALIST NEGATIVE THEOLOGY

7. TRIBULATIONS OF A WOMAN-HYENA: AUTHORITY, COSTUME, AND FRIENDSHIP

Why Heidegger Should Not Be Criminalized

The Birth of Fascism out of the Spirit of Beauty

Don Carlos between Auhthority and Friendship

Stalin as Anti-Master

Schiller versus Hegel

The Self-Debased Authority



8. IS GOD DEAD, UNCONSCIOUS, EVIL, IMPOTENT, STUPID OR JUST COUNTERFACTUAL?

On Divine Inexistence

Counterfactuals

Retroactivity, Omnipotence, and Impotence

The Twelfth Camel as One of the Names of God

A Truth That Arises out of a Lie

The Divine Death-Drive

The Deposed God



9. JECT OR SCEND? FROM THE TRAUMATIZED SUBJECT TO SUBJECT AS TRAUMA

The Parallax of Drive and Desire

Immortality as Death in Life

The Troubles with Finitude

Materialism or Agnosticism?

A Comical Conclusion



CONCLUSION: THE COURAGE OF HOPELESSNESS

The Millenarian "Exhalation of Stale Gas"

Divine Violence

The Points of the Impossible



Index