Demanding the Impossible - by Slavoj Zizek (Paperback)

About the Book

"Based on live interviews, this book captures 'Zi'zek at his best, elucidating such topics as the uprisings of the Arab Spring, the global financial crisis, populism in Latin America, the rise of China, and even the riddle of North Korea. While analyzing our present predicaments, 'Zi'zek also explores possibilities for change. A key obligation in our troubled times, 'Zi'zek argues, is to dare to ask fundamental questions: we must reflect and theorize anew, and always be prepared to rethink and redefine the limits of the possible."--

Book Synopsis

Where are we today and what is to be done? Slavoj Zizek ponders these questions in this unique and timely book. Based on live interviews, the book captures Zizek at his irrepressible best, elucidating such topics as the uprisings of the Arab Spring, the global financial crisis, populism in Latin America, the rise of China and even the riddle of North Korea. Zizek dazzles readers with his analyses of Hollywood films, Venezuelan police reports, Swedish crime fiction and much else. Wherever the conversation turns, his energetic mind illuminates unexpected horizons.

While analyzing our present predicaments, Zizek also explores possibilities for change. What sort of society is worth striving for? Why is it difficult to imagine alternative social and political arrangements? What are the bases for hope? A key obligation in our troubled times, argues Zizek, is to dare to ask fundamental questions: we must reflect and theorize anew, and always be prepared to rethink and redefine the limits of the possible.

These original and compelling conversations offer an engaging and accessible introduction to one of the most important thinkers of our time.

Review Quotes

"Zizek is, in fact, the most formidably brilliant exponent of psychoanalysis, indeed of cultural theory in general, to have emerged from Europe in several decades."
--Terry Eagleton

"Zizek is to today what Jacques Derrida was to the '80s: the thinker of choice for Europe's young intellectual vanguard."
--The Observer

"... an excellent introduction to both the breadth and depth of Zizek's ideas, made all the better to follow his arguments via an imaginative format of short thematic interviews."
--The Substantive

About the Author

Slavoj Zizek is a professor at the European Graduate School, International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, Birkbeck College, University of London, and a senior researcher at the Institute of Sociology, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.