The Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities has been hosting some ‘Masterclasses’ with Slavoj Žižek. The three talks are available for download here:
- The Idea of Communism and its Actuality (plus Q&A) (23rd March 2011)
- Lacan and Sexual Difference (plus Q&A) (25th March 2011)
- The Limits of Hegel (26th March 2011)
Need more Žižek? There’s also an older talk:
- Violence Revisited (plus Q&A) (12 November 2010)
Plus, here’s an interesting lecture (1971) by, and interviews with, Jacques Lacan in which he ruminates about language, death, faith, life, psychoanalysis, love, alienation, and paranoia:
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Interesting discussion on Hegel. I had an early morning dyslexic moment and read ‘Hegel’ as ‘Hebel’. Because I am doing an assignment on Ecclesiastes 1:1-11 and focussing on the meaning of ‘Hebel’ which is translated ‘meaningless or vanity’ I started to listen to the recording… I soon found out I read the title wrong – but he said a lot that I can draw on, which I hadn’t thought of before and can include into this assignment…and therefore my listening to his talk did have a specific purpose to it. ;)
These look like great lectures. Thanks.
Do you see a growing trend of Christians engaging or appropriating ideas from Žižek and Lacan into their own theological reflection? If yes, what do you think are the reasons for this?
Just another protestant machiavellian (with Freudian updates/confusion)
Sivin Kit,
Yes, I’d say so. Check out the two recent books edited by Creston Davis, which has articles by Zizek, Terry Eagleton, John Milbank and others. I think the first was entitled “Theology and the Political”, and there is a ‘sequel’, but I’m not sure of the name of it. Also take a look at the co-authored book by Milbank and Zizek called “The Monstrosity of Christ” and the postmodern theological works of Graham Ward, the best of which I would argue is “The Politics of Discipleship”. As to the reasons, I’m not really into theology enough to venture any, but I would guess that any left-leaning Christian thinkers who want to preserve/re-think transcendence without sacrificing the insights of poststructuralist ethics and socialist political critiques of capitalism would almost HAVE to appropriate Zizek’s work.