"Zizek’s playful writing style presents the reader with apposite and amusing examples, from Franz Kafka to Jane Austen, which clarify and enliven his arguments. Zizek’s book bursts with reflection, observation, wit and raw iconoclastic conclusions. Zizek’s magnetic style and radical ideas are a welcome and inspiring breath of fresh air. It is possible that through revealing how we make sense of our past The Most Sublime Hysteric may help us to cultivate a better future."
——Morning Star
"The Most Sublime Hysteric clearly outlines the logic at the basis of the thought of the most important philosopher of our time. With care and precision, Zizek conjoins Hegel and Lacan, building the components of his own unique and powerful philosophical system. This long-awaited translation of Zizek's doctoral dissertation provides a valuable new point of entry to his work, appropriate for experts and newcomers alike."
——Jodi Dean, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
"Slavoj Zizek’s doctoral thesis on Hegel, Lacan, and the impasses of post-Hegelianism is as fresh today as it was in 1982. Written with his characteristic wit and exceptional lucidity, this book will clarify the foundational ideas of one of the greatest thinkers of our time."
——Kenneth Reinhard, University of California, Los Angeles
"What a fascinating document it is."
——Irish Left Review
What do we know about Hegel? What do we know about Marx? What do we know about democracy and totalitarianism? Communism and psychoanaly sis? What do we know that isn't a platitude that we've heard a thousand times - or a self-satisfied certainty? Through his brilliant reading of Hegel, Slavoj Zizek - one of the most provocative and widely-read thinkers of our time - upends our traditional understanding, dynamites every cliché and undermines every conviction in order to clear the ground for new ways of answering these questions.
When Lacan described Hegel as the ‘most sublime hysteric’, he was referring to the way that the hysteric asks questions because he experiences his own desire as if it were the Other's desire. In the dialectical process, the question asked of the Other is resolved through a reflexive turn in which the question begins to function as its own answer. We had made Hegel into the theorist of abstraction and reaction, but by reading Hegel with Lacan, Zizek unveils a Hegel of the concrete and of revolution - his own, and the one to come.
This early and dazzlingly original work by Zizek offers a unique insight into the ideas which have since become hallmarks of his mature thought. It will be of great interest to anyone interested in critical theory, philosophy and contemporary social thought.
Slavoj Zizek is Professor at the Institute of Sociology, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
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