{"title":"Series: Žižek's Essays","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eŽižek's Essays\u003c\/strong\u003e offers a thought-provoking journey through contemporary culture, philosophy, and politics, inviting readers to engage with complex ideas in accessible prose. Known for blending critical theory with wit and insight, these essays challenge conventional perspectives across a range of topics.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eExploring themes that span from the intricacies of modern society to the nuances of identity and ideology, this collection appeals to readers interested in deep, reflective analysis. Whether approached through \u003cem\u003eArts \u0026amp; Culture\u003c\/em\u003e or broader social inquiry, Žižek's voice remains distinctive and compelling.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"against-progress-by-slavoj-zizek-9781350515857","title":"Against Progress","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eAgainst Progress\u003c\/i\u003e invites readers to define 'progress' and stake a claim on the future. Seminal thinker Slavoj Žižek adopts an essayist approach to explore competing visions that shape human possibilities, asking whether things, which have never seemed worse, can indeed get better. What would constitute a better world? And how can we advance amidst the constant challenges posed by doomers, degrowthers, and disorienting relativisms in the face of unprecedented ecological, social, and political crises?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThrough thirteen iconoclastic essays, Slavoj Žižek disrupts the stranglehold that neoliberalists, Trumpian populists, toxic self-improvement industries, and accelerationists have on the concept of progress. By analysing what is lost when those opposed to the future define it, Žižek exposes the exclusions and sacrifices inherent in different visions of progress. He delves into the dynamics of desire, denial, and disavowal at play in Hollywood blockbusters, Buddhist economics, decolonization movements, and other significant frameworks of vision.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn a whirlwind tour that encompasses topics from gentrification to the theory of relativity, from Lacan to Lenin, from Putin to Mary Poppins, and from Marine Le Pen to the end of the world, these essays persistently challenge imagined futures with probing questions.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eMoreover, Žižek confronts the most difficult question of all: How do we liberate ourselves from the hypocritical, guilt-ridden dreaming that entangles us, and begin to construct a better world?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House Distribution","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46768426287340,"sku":"9781350515857","price":21.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/23070853482668.jpg?v=1756377502"},{"product_id":"zero-point-by-slavoj-zizek-9781350537842","title":"Zero Point","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe essays in \u003ci\u003eZero Point\u003c\/i\u003e ask how we distinguish defeat from disaster, and how we confront despair without collapsing into it—questions never more pertinent than the current moment in the wake of electoral victories for authoritarian populists and unceasing news of violent atrocities.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe 'zero-point' of the title is ground level, rock bottom, the place to which one retreats and where one regroups. Taken from Vladimir Lenin's 1922 piece \"On Ascending a High Mountain,\" in which Lenin considers the complexities of how one 'retreats' while keeping faith in the cause, the central simile of the climber offers a blueprint for resilience, flexibility, and the persistence of hope.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis is the revolutionary as living out the Beckettian motto: \"Try again. Fail again. Fail better.\" In Žižek's hands, this becomes the formula for confronting the antagonisms of existing world order. With a particular focus on the Middle East—the point at which all our tensions threaten to explode—Žižek argues nothing can be addressed meaningfully without such a confrontation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe consequences of eschewing apolitical acts of solidarity and choosing to attempt to speak truth to power are reckoned with in the second half of \u003ci\u003eZero Point\u003c\/i\u003e. In a unique piece assembled chronologically from unpublished writings, Žižek wrestles with the fallout from his controversial speech at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October 2023—a speech which saw him interrupted, condemned, and accused of anti-Semitism. The reader bears witness as Žižek processes the criticism, evolves his thinking, and explores the full ethical, political, and personal ramifications of the question: When is the right time to speak?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47000852594924,"sku":"9781350537842","price":21.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/23290703482668.jpg?v=1763310030"},{"product_id":"liberal-fascisms-by-slavoj-zizek-9781350573161","title":"Liberal Fascisms","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWith an apparently contradictory and characteristically makeshift term, ‘Liberal Fascisms’, Slavoj Žižek captures the paradoxical nature of political populism.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eTo see this phenomenon as purely liberal \u003ci\u003eand\u003c\/i\u003e dictatorially fascistic is to expose liberalism and fascism as two sides of the same coin. The concept offers a glimpse into the murky landscape of half-lies and double-truths that Žižek enters in this latest collection of urgent essays.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the economy and politics to ideology, these short texts work through the different faces of liberal fascisms, structured around a trio of the universal, the particular, and the singular: our global predicament; Europe and the Middle East; Trump’s America. Peeling back the inadequate labels we hasten to pin on the phenomena that terrify us – like ‘post-truth’ – to peer at the seeping wounds beneath them, these writings reveal the uneasy mixture of hypocrisy, self-deception and what is real that have \u003ci\u003ealways\u003c\/i\u003e been stacked, matryoshka-like, inside of one another.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWith no cure in hand, but a refusal to dispense with thought that is muddled and murky, these interventions are both timely and resolute. From the so-called “death of truth” opens up the possibility for a new authentic truth… or for an even bigger lie. And ultimately we must ask – what forms of justice are made possible by this disorder?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eLiberal Fascisms\u003c\/i\u003e is also available in audiobook format from audiobook retailers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47773087138028,"sku":"9781350573161","price":40.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781350573161-liberal-fascisms.jpg?v=1782180240"},{"product_id":"signs-from-the-future-by-slavoj-zizek-9781350648449","title":"Signs from the Future","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe old liberal world order is dying and yet new realities are consistently stillborn.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWe are, as Slavoj Žižek argues in this arresting new book, stuck in time with only the 'morbid phenomena' of Gramsci's chilling words for company: 'the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum, a great variety of morbid phenomena appears'. These phenomena—chaotic economic wars, new forms of Fascism, techno-feudalism, a return to colonial land grabs, planetary destruction and sanctioned genocides—overwhelm us at every turn. What can we do, in such a desperate climate, to stem the flow of despair?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWe might look to the great triumphs, successes and lessons of the past to guide our path—sifting the annals of history for insights which could disrupt our disastrous trajectory. And yet, this historical knowledge doesn't seem to meaningfully disturb the ruinous repetitions we see throughout human history. What might happen if we look to the future? Could it be that the realm of fortune tellers, star gazers and conspiracists is more predictable, knowable even, than we've allowed ourselves to think? Can we not read the 'morbid phenomena' that abound as concrete predictors of what is to come? From Gaza to Iran, Ukraine to the streets of Minneapolis and Venezuela to Sudan, are we not given such signs—a series of unfathomable and brutal events that, without decisive action now, will remain our future?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eSigns from the Future\u003c\/i\u003e, Žižek's self-coined 'materialist prophesying' provides the tools to read worlds that have not yet been born but make their presence reverberate in the present nonetheless. He asks us to address our lives as 'signs from the future', intimations that warn us but also prompt us—to action, resistance, reparation and the fragile possibility of hope.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48334341800172,"sku":"9781350648449","price":21.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781350648449-signs-from-the-future-1.jpg?v=1788915436"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.live\/collections\/series-zizeks-essays.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}