Žižek and his Contemporaries

Jones Irwin is Lecturer in Philosophy and Human Development in the Education Department at St Patrick 's College, Dublin City University, Ireland. Helena Motoh is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Primorska, Slovenia.

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. What Was Going On In Ljubljana?2. The Lacan Effect 3. From Punk to Cogito to Voice: On Mladen Dolar 4. ‘Learn, Learn and Learn’: On Žižek 5. ‘From Haso to Mujo’: On Zupancic Epilogue: ‘We Don’t Know What Will Become Of This Psychoanalysis’EndnotesBibliographyIndex

This is a wonderfully informative book, a kind of "Once upon a Time, Ljubljana," in which elevated philosophical debates and emerging political and cultural realities keep crossing over into each other's frames. It tells the story -- not anecdotally, but analytically, with a wealth of theoretical sophistication -- of how, from the tiny country of Slovenia, Slavoj Žižek and his closest colleagues, Mladen Dolar and Alenka Zupancic, encouraged and inspired by a phalanx of talented artists and intellectuals, launched a distinctive school of thought (both Lacanian and Marxist) with universal appeal. The real accomplishment of the "back story" is that it sets this thought into relief; that is, it tarnishes neither its distinction nor its universality.