On Zizek's Dialectics

Fabio Vighi is Professor of Critical Theory and Italian at Cardiff University, UK. His previous titles include: Critical Theory and the Crisis of Contemporary Capitalism, co-authored with Heiko Feldner (Bloomsbury, 2015) and Between Urban Topographies and Political Spaces: Threshold Experiences (2014), co-edited with Alexis Nuselovici and Mauro Ponzi.

"In the guise of providing a commentary on the political implications of Slavoj Žižek's philosophy, Vighi has made clear the precise contours of the link between theory and practice in an utterly original fashion. His book marks a major milestone in the history of thinking about politics." - Todd McGowan, University of Vermont, USA, author of The Real Gaze: Film Theory After Lacan

• Introduction Part I: The enjoyment of capitalism: surplus-jouissance and work 1. The will to enjoyment 2. Jouissance at arm's length 3. From surplus-value to surplus-jouissance 4. The unbearable lightness of being the proletariat 5. Shame, subversion, and manual labour 6. Karatani's wager Excursus 1: Georges Bataille's potlach and the splendour of rags Excursus 2: Silvio Berlusconi's enjoyment and related obscenities Part II: The surplus of thought: epistemology and dialectics 7. From subject to a political subject 8. Democracy under duress 9. Dialectical materialism as parallax 10. The vicissitudes of subtraction 11. The invisible rabbit inside the hat 12. 'Though this be madness, yet there is method in it' Bibliography Index