Zizek and Media Studies

Film, media, and cultural theorists have long appealed to Lacanian theory in order to discern processes of subjectivization, representation, and ideological interpellation. Here, the contributors take up a Zizekian approach to studies of cinema and media, raising questions about power, ideology, sexual difference, and enjoyment.

A FIRST: The focus on i ekian studies across disciplines is booming, but no other book applies his thought as widely, from philosophy and politics to film, music, and social media

Introduction: Zizek and Media Studies, Beyond Lacan; Matthew Flisfeder and Louis-Paul Willis PART I: MEDIA, IDEOLOGY, AND POLITICS 1. Zizek's Reception: Fifty Shades of Gray Ideology; Paul A. Taylor 2. The Sublime Absolute: Althusser, Zizek, and the Critique of Ideology; Agon Hamza 3. Student Fantasies: A Zizekian Perspective on the 2012 Quebec Student Uprising; Louis-Paul Willis 4. The Objective: The Configuration of Trauma in the 'War on Terror,' or the Sublime Object of the Medium; Richard Begin PART II: POPULAR CULTURE 5. The Priority of the Example: Hegel Contra Film Studies; Todd McGowan 6. Imagining the End Times: Ideology, the Contemporary Disaster Movie, and Contagion; Matthew Beaumont 7. Zizek and the 80s Movie Song: "There Is a Non-Relationship"; Graham Wolfe 8. A Little Piece of the Reel: Prosthetic Vocality and the Obscene Surplus of Record Production; Mickey Vallee 9. White Elephants and Dark Matter(s): Watching the World Cup with Slavoj Zizek; Tim Walters PART III: FILM AND CINEMA 10. Contingent Encounters and Retroactive Signification: Zooming in on the Dialectical Core of Zizek's Film Criticism; Fabio Vighi 11. How to Kill Your Mother: Heavenly Creatures, Desire and Zizek's Return to Ideology; Cindy Zeiher 12. Dialogue with American Skepticism: Cavell and Zizek on Sexual Difference; Keiko Ogata 13. From Interpassive to Interactive Cinema: A Genealogy of the Moving Image of Cynicism; Tamas Nagypal 14. Beyond the Beyond: CGI and the Anxiety of Overperfection; Hugh Manon PART IV: SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE INTERNET 15. Slavoj Zizek as Internet Philosopher; Clint Burnham 16. The Real Internet; Jodi Dean 17. Enjoying Social Media; Matthew Flisfeder 18. Is Torture Part of Your Social Network; Tara Atluri Afterword: Staging Feminine Hysteria: Schoenberg's Erwartung; Slavoj Zizek