International Journal of Zizek Studies: Vol 1 (3) – 2007: Zizek and Cinema

3 Responses

1. 

   Ian M.
   December 16, 2007 at 3:44 am

   There’s something a bit distressing about having a journal of studies of a writer who is not only currently living but is on the board of said journal (at least the last time I heard). I’d expect that kind of self-congratulating from Lacan, with his arrogant fondness for brutal academic politics and overly positive reception of his own accomplishments, but Zizek… I thought he was smarter. How disappointing.
2. 

   Paul
   January 3, 2008 at 5:48 pm

   Hi Ian,

   Does this mean that the only thinkers worthy of sustained interrogation are dead thinkers? I’d have thought that there’s either enough substantial work for a journal to get its teeth into or there isn’t. Their ability to breathe or not strikes me as a rather secondary consideration.

   Also, considering online journals create a whole new realm of opportunities in terms of their responsiveness and adaptability – it would perhaps be a bit perverse to use such an innately flexible format for only those people who have been posthumously admitted into the intellectual Hall of Fame.

   As for Zizek himself being on the Board – it’s an honorary position just to show that he supports the project. I didn’t know Lacan so I won’t make ad hominem comments about him, similarly, I don’t know Zizek on more than a basic level of correspondence – but the distinct impression I get is someone who is very generous with his time and has in fact done his best to free himself from “brutal academic politics” by carving a non-institutionalized space out for himself.

   In terms of the “overly positive reception of his own accomplishments” – the Journal is dedicated to a serious consideration of his work. E.g. Ian Parker is also on the Board and has produced some very critical assessements of Zizek’s work. In the latest issue both Fried and Polt have a significant disagreement with Zizek’s account of Heidegger’s turn to Nazism – but it’s refreshing to see that they do it in a constructive, respectful manner.

   No matter how smart academics and intellectuals may or may not be – it never ceases to depress me how catty and ungenerous they often are, but I’m sure there’s a psychoanalytical explanation for that.

   very best wishes,

   Paul.
3. 

   Ian M.
   January 15, 2008 at 4:08 pm

   Dear Paul,

   As only provided with your first name, I hope you won’t take offense to my addressing you so informally or personally, for you are correct in noting the often vicious, ‘catty’ or ‘ungenerous’ ways in which ‘academics and intellectuals’ can act in engaging each other in matters of study. Taking offense to a suggestion of my own psychoanalysis, or its necessity, for my perceived faux pas of making such judgments, would be hasty, as it would, to me at least (if I can speak for myself), try to reinstall the boundaries between all other matters and a certain subjectivity, or kernel (a word Zizek loves), that is ‘off limits’ or, conversely, limiting to any consideration. I take quite considerable compliment in such a suggestion, as Deleuze and Guattari note that it is the practice of psychoanalysis, as practice aimed at a cure, that seeks to control forces of real de-structive possibility. To be aligned with those forces, forces that want to destroy the Father, the King, the Analyst, or be suggested to be moving among them, is of great compliment and I sincerely appreciate it.

   With that said, you are right to note, perhaps, that flight from studying any philosopher currently living, whereas those who are dead are deemed then acceptable, is hazardous to productive study and shies away from the possibilities opened by electronic communication. That is to say, how could we call ourselves rigorous if we condemn the crowding around of thinkers currently living while not condemning the same around those who are dead? While the argument (for a dead philosopher over a living one in terms of study) that a dead philosopher provides a ‘finished’ set of texts, while a living one is in motion, only holds moderate weight for me, as the use of such an argument to contend that dead philosophers are preferable over living ones, forces out a whole set of “benefits” in studying living philosophers, for reasons I’m sure you share (the wonder of watching someone so brilliant in motion, the possibility of engagement with the philosopher, etc.).

   Though, I am caught, and I confess this to any further analysis as I acknowledge the step this takes, that I do wonder what Freud would say to such an organization or group of study. That is, what would Freud say to someone who endorsed a project of their own study? Would such a project, no matter how critical, not bear a slight narcissistic edge, a willingness to defer to oneself, to be the Father? And what is to be said of those (with Nietzsche do we examine the doing, never blaming the doer) who should, in the last instance, affirm the Father even in attack, by collecting under a title that bears his name. Derrida takes Lacan to task for this in ‘The Postcard,’ the reinstating of the very system (in Lacan, the “metaphysics of presence”) that one claims to overthrow, and I wonder if that critique might disseminate into the matter under consider here, or least find similarity. Deleuze and Guattari I think well noted the capitalism of psychoanalysis, the ways in which psychoanalysis frees flows only to recapture others, freeing to redraw the boundaries (deterritoralization/reterritorialization). What might be said for Zizek and the journal that tries to find a ‘non-academic’ or ‘non-institutionalized’ space (I use the term ‘institutionalized’ in both senses, regarding academia as well as to mental health) only to remake a sphere of its own, to collectivize, to shape, to re-code? No matter how critical the project, Zizek endorses it and gives it credence, which is a gesture that I must say worries me pertaining to the ‘state of academia,’ as we might (sadly do I say ‘we’ as if ‘we’ are separate) want to steer from ‘academic rock stars’ or great figures of untouchable height (the ‘Hall of Fame’). This could be said of any study of such a kind, I must say it only struck me because the thinker under consideration not only endorsed it, but remains on the board, even if in a figurative role.

   Zizek I have not met and can only hope that we do, I enjoy his writing immensely (a source of my disappointment) and can only assume the best of him until I find reason otherwise. Lacan I have never met and, as he is dead, that remains impossible, at least in person. As for Lacan’s ‘brutal academic politics,’ I had assumed this history well known, but one need only look to some of the many examples of such (I can find citations if you like, I am without my books at the moment of writing): his public outing of Derrida for being in analysis after Derrida published material critical of Lacan (Derrida provides an account of this in ‘For the Love of Lacan,’ which is linked on this website), Lacan’s infamous meeting with Deleuze, which I remember reading Deleuze describing as of the effect of Lacan yelling at Deleuze for two hours nonsensically, then asking him to leave, or Lacan’s continually arrogant reception of his work in particularly his lectures (I remember his ‘Ethics’ lectures being particularly nauseating in that regard, though otherwise worthwhile).

   Thank you for your notes on my comment and I should hope this not the end of our discussion, though I am unsure how to contact you, and I give the administrator any and all freedom to give my contact information to you if you would like it. Please forgive my lateness in replying, I was unaware of your comment until this afternoon. In the ‘spirit’ of Derrida’s ‘The Postcard,’ I can only hope that this reply arrives.

   Yours,
   Ian M.