Understanding Žižek, Understanding Modernism

Jeffrey R. Di Leo is Professor of English and Philosophy at the University of Houston, Victoria, USA. He is editor and founder of the critical theory journal symploke editor and publisher of the American Book Review, and Executive Director of the Society for Critical Exchange. He has written, edited, or co-edited twenty-five books including the Bloomsbury Handbook of Literary and Cultural Theory (2018).Zahi Zalloua is the Cushing Eells Professor of Philosophy and Literature and a Professor of French and Interdisciplinary Studies at Whitman College and Editor of The Comparatist. He is the author of five books, including Žižek on Race: Toward an Anti- Racist Future (2020), Theory’s Autoimmunity: Skepticism, Literature, and Philosophy (2018), and Continental Philosophy and the Palestinian Question: Beyond the Jew and the Greek (2017). He has edited volumes and special journal issues on globalization, literary theory, ethical criticism, and trauma studies.

• AcknowledgementsIntroduction: Understanding Žižek, Understanding ModernismJeffrey R. Di Leo (University of Houston, Victoria, USA) and Zahi Zalloua (Whitman College, US)Part I: Mapping Žižek1. Lacan and Žižek on the Cogito and the Modern: Galileo, or Hegel?, Ed Puth2. Žižek’s Hegel, our Hegel, Agon Hamza3. Žižek and the (Chinese Dialectic of the) Revolution, Frank Ruda4. Being Sexed: Žižek’s Modern Ontology, James Penney5. Nil Actum Credens, Si Quid Superesset Agendum: or, Slavoj, Can’t You See I’m Burning? Žižek avec the Clusterfuck of 2020, Clint Burnham6. What’s Wrong with Being Happy? Žižek’s Critique of Happiness, Jeffrey R. Di LeoPart II. A Leftist Plea for Modernism 7. Žižek avec Montaigne, Zahi Zalloua8. Žižek and the Bartleby Paradox: I Would Prefer Not To?, Cindy Zeiher9. Hitchcock’s Modernist Hauntology, Laurence Simmons10. Žižek’s Redemptive Reading of Richard Wagner’s Ambivalent Modernity, Erik Vogt11. Žižek’s Critique of the Authoritarian Personality, Geoff Boucher12. What Is Worth Salvaging In Modernity: A Realist Perspective From Non-Philosophical Marxism to Žižek’s Universalism, Katerina Kolozova13. Are We Human? Or, Posthumanism and the Subject of Modernity, Matthew FlisfederPart III: Glossary14. Enjoyment, Todd McGowan15. Ideology, Glyn Daly16. Universality, Ilan Kapoorr17. The Subject, Russell Sbriglia18. Symptom, David J. Gunkel19. Class, Matthew Bost20. Violence, Oxana Timofeeva 21. The Death Drive, Zahi ZallouaNotes on ContributorsIndex

Di Leo and Zalloua have put together an indispensable guide for understanding the centrality of modernity and modernism in Žižek’s influential interventions in philosophy, politics, film studies, sexuality, psychoanalysis, music, and posthuman studies. This thought-provoking collection not only maps current conversations and debates in these terrains, but also explains the reasons leftists must still take Žižek’s engagement with modernism seriously. In addition, this stimulating volume generously offers a glossary of major concepts that will appeal to both the knowbies and newbies in Žižekian studies