Slavoj Žižek, Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture

Kelsey Wood (University of Arkansas at Little Rock)

Ed. by Gerhard P. Knapp, University of Utah
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.5.2.07: French Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Kate Averis (University of Western Australia), Hugo Azerad (University of Cambridge), Patrick ffrench (King's College London), Edward Forman (University of Bristol), Akane Kawakami (Birkbeck, University of London), Siobhán McIlvanney (King's College London), Sinan Richards (King's College London), Tim Unwin (University of Bristol), David Williams (University of Sheffield)

Domains

Cultural Studies

Dates

First circulation or publication 1991

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Commentary / criticism

Resources

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The philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj Zizek is one of today’s most important and innovative thinkers. Zizek is best known as an interpreter of contemporary culture in light of the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan, and one of his most popular books is

Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture

(1991). In his preface, Zizek describes the book as:

[...] a reading of the most sublime theoretical motifs of Jacques Lacan together with and through exemplary cases of contemporary mass culture: not only Alfred Hitchcock, about whom there is now general agreement that he was, after all, a “serious artist,” but also film noir, science fiction, detective novels, sentimental kitsch, and up – or down – to Stephen King. (LA, p. vii)

[...] a reading…

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2612 words

Citation: Wood, Kelsey. "Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 14 October 2008 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=23509, accessed 03 December 2024.]